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AN 

ITTIC PHILOSOPHER 

IN PARIS. 


A PEEP AT THE WORLD FROM A GARRET. 


• > * >00 A * O > J J i > <* 

>0., > ) • > o ^ * 

; mee}<#, 1 : : 


THE JOURNAL OF A HAPl'T MAN. 


1 *> fc > 

J ^ J 


FROM THE FRENCH OF 

EMILE SOUVESTRE. 

♦ ♦ 


NEW YORK : 

D. APPLETON & CO., 443 & 445 BROADWAY. 
1867. 



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ADVERTISEMENT. 


We know a man who, in the midst of the fever of rest- 
lessness and of ambition which racks society in our 
times, continues to fill his humble part in the world 
without a murmur, and who still preserves, so to speak, 
the taste for poverty. With no other fortune than a 
small clerkship, which enables him to live within the 
narrow limits which separate competence from want, 
our philosopher looks from the height of his attic upon 
society as upon a sea, of which he neither covets the 
riches nor fears the wrecks. Being too insignificant to 
excite the envy of any one, he sleeps peacefully, wrapped 
in his obscurity. 

Not that he retreats into egotism, as a tortoise into 
its shell ! He is the man of whom Terence says, that 
“ nothing human seems foreign to him ! ” All external 
objects and incidents are reflected in his mind as in a 
camera-obscura, which presents their images in a pic- 
ture. He “ looks at society as it is, in itself,” with 
the patient curiousness which belongs to recluses ; and 


4 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


he writes a monthly journal of what he has seen or 
thought. It is the “ Calendar of his Impressions,” 
as he is wont to call it. 

We have been allowed to look over it, and have 
extracted some pages which may make the reader ac- 
quainted with the commonplace adventures of an un- 
known thinker in those twelve hostelries of Time — 
called Months. 


CONTENTS 


Advertisement . 

Page 

. . . 3 

j£ttto New-Year’s Gifts 

CHAPTER I. 

1 

The Carnival . 

CHAPTER II 

✓ i'C* 

15 

CHAPTER HI. 


What we may Learn by Looking out of Window . . 25 

CHAPTER IY. 

Let us Love one Another . .... 33 


Compensation 

CHAPTER Y. 

13 

Uncle Maurice . 

CHAPTER YL 

53 

CHAPTER VII. 


The Price of Power, and the Worth of Fame . . 66 

CHAPTER VIII. 


Misanthropy and Repentance . 


7 9 


CONTENTS. 


6 

CHAPTER IX. 

Page 

The Family of Michael Arout ... 88 

CHAPTER X. 

Our Country ....... 101 

CHAPTER XL 

Moral Use of Inventories . , „ 116 

CHAPTER XIL 

The End of the Year . . . , 81 


AN ■ 

ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE ATTIC NEW-YEAR’S GIFTS. 

January ls£. — T he day of the month came into my mind as 
soon as I awoke. Another year is separated from the chain 
of ages, and drops into the gulf of the past ! The crowd 
hasten to welcome her young sister. But while all looks are 
turned towards the future, mine revert to the past. Every 
one smiles upon the new queen ; hut, in spite of myself, I 
think of her whom time has just wrapped in her winding- 
sheet. The past year ! — at least I know what she was, and 
what she has given me : whilst this one comes surrounded 
by all the forebodings of the unknown. What does she hide 
in the clouds which mantle her ? Is it the storm or the sun- 
shine ? Just now it rains, and I feel my mind as gloomy 
as the sky. I have a holiday to-day ; but what can one do 
with a rainy day ? I walk up and down my attic out of tem- 
per, and I determine to light my fire. 

Unfortunately the matches are bad, the chimney smokes, 
the wood goes out ! I throw down my bellows in disgust, 
and sink into my old arm-chair. 

In truth, why should I rejoice to see the birth of a new 
year ? All those who are already in the streets, with their 
holiday looks and smiling faces — do they understand what 


8 


V 

'AN ATTIC ?EII. < OSpP < HER IN PARIS. 

makes them SoVgajfc? Do they eye n know what is the mean- 
ing of' this ' holiday, or from whence' comes the custom of 
Now-year’s ‘gifts? ‘ 

'Here <ihy hiikd VpauseS' tb prove to itself its superiority 
over* ‘that c of ‘ the Fulgafr/^X mtike a parenthesis in my ill- 
teihper in favour of •my vanity, and I bring together all the 
evidence which ' ihy knowledge can produce. 

(The old Romans divided the year into ten months only ; 
it was Numa Pompilius who added January and February. 
The former took its name from Janus, to whom it was dedi- 
cated. As it opened the New-year, they surrounded its 
commencement with good omens, and thence came the cus- 
tom of visits between neighbours, of wishing happiness, and 
of New-year" 1 s gifts. The presents given by the Romans 
were symbolic. They consisted of dried figs, dates, honey- 
comb, as emblems of “ the sweetne'ss of the auspices under 
which the year should begin its course,” and a small piece 
of money called stips, which foreboded riches.) 

Here I close the parenthesis, and return to my ill- 
humour. The little speech ,* I have just addressed to my- 
self has restored me my self-satisfaction, but made me more 
dissatisfied with others. I could now enjoy my breakfast ; 
but the portress has forgotten my morning’s milk, and 'the 
pot of preserves is empty ! Any one else would have been 
vexed; as for me, I affect the most supreme indifference. 
There remains a hard crust, which I break by main strength, 
and which I carelessly nibble, as a man far above the vani- 
ties of the world and of fresh rolls. 

However, I do not know why my thoughts should grow 
more gloomy by reason of the difficulties of mastication. I 
once read the story of an Englishman who hanged himself 
because they had brought him his tea without sugar. There 
are hours in life when the most trifling cross takes the form 
of a calamity. Our tempers are like an opera-glass, which 


* Spitchy in the original. 


THE ATTIC NEW-YEAR’S GIFTS. 0 

makes the object small or great according to the end yon 
look through. 

Generally, the prospect which opens out before my window 
delights me. It is a mountain range of roofs, with ridges 
crossing, interlacing, and piled on one another, and upon 
which tall chimneys raise their peaks. It was but yesterday 
that they had an alpine aspect to me, and I waited for the 
first snow-storm to %ee glaciers among them ; to-day, I only 
see tiles and stone flues. The pigeons, which assisted my 
rural illusions, seem no more than miserable birds which have 
mistaken the roof for the back-yard ; the smoke, which rises 
in light clouds, instead of making me dream of the panting 
of Vesuvius, reminds me of kitchen preparations and dish- 
water ; and lastly, the telegraph, that I see far off on the 
old tower of Montmartre, has the effect of a vile gallows 
stretching its arms over the city. 

My eyes thus hurt by all they meet, fall upon the great 
man’s house which faces my attic. 

The influence of New-year’s Day is visible there. The 
servants have an air of eagerness proportioned to the value 
of their New-year’s gifts, received or expected. I see the 
master of the house crossing the court with the morose look 
of a man who is forced to be generous ; and the visitors in- 
crease, followed by shop porters who carry flowers, band- 
boxes, or toys. All at once the great gates are opened, and 
a new carriage, drawn by thorough-bred horses, draVs up 
before the door-st&ps. They are, without doubt, the New- 
year’s gifts presented ’to the mistress of the house by her 
husband ; for she comes herself to look at the new equipage. 
Very soon she gets into it with a little girl, all streaming with 
laces, feathers, and velvets, and loaded with parcels which she 
goes to distribute as New-year’s gifts. The door is shut, the 
windows drawn up, the carriage sets off. 

Thus all the world are exchanging good wishes and 
presents to-day : I alone have nothing to give or to receive. 

1 * 


10 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


Poor Solitary ! I do not even know one cliosen being for 
wliom I might offer a prayer. 

Then let my wishes for a happy New-year go, and seek 
out all my unknown friends, — lost in the multitude which 
murmurs like the ocean at my feet ! ( 

To you first, hermits in cities, for whom death and pov- 
erty have created a solitude in the midst of the crowd ! un- 
happy labourers, who are condemned t© toil in melancholy, 
and eat your daily bread in silence and desertion, and whom 
God has withdrawn from the intoxicating pangs of love or 
friendship ! 

To you, fond dreamers, who pass through life with your 
eyes turned towards some polar star, while you tread with 
indifference over the rich harvests of reality ! 

To you, honest fathers, who lengthen out the evening to 
maintain your families ! to you, poor widows, weeping and 
working by a cradle ! to you, young men, resolutely set to 
open for yourselves a path in life, large enough to lead 
through it the wife of your choice ! to you, all brave soldiers 
of work, and of self-sacrifice ! 

To you, lastly, whatever your title and your name, who 
love good, who pity the suffering ; who walk through the 
world like the symbolical Virgin of Byzantium, with both 
arms open to the human race ! 

Here I am suddenly interrupted by loud and in- 
creasing chirpings. I look about me — my window is sur- 
rounded with sparrows picking up the crumbs of bread, 
which in my brown study I had just scattered on the roof. 
At this sight, a flash of light broke upon my saddened heart. 
I deceived myself just now, when I complained that I had 
nothing to give : thanks to me, the sparrows of this part of 
the town will have their New-year’s gifts ! 

Twelve o'clock. — A knock at my door ; a poor girl comes 
in, and greets me by name. At first I do not recollect her ; 
but she looks at me, and smiles. — Ah ! it is Paulette ! But 


THE ATTIC NEW-YEAR’S GIFT. 


11 


it is almost a year since I liave seen her, and Paulette is no 
longer the same : the other day she was a child, now she is 
almost a young woman. 

Paulette is thin, pale, and miserably clad ; hut she has 
always the same open and straightforward look — the same 
mouth, smiling at every word, as if to court your sympathy 
— the same voice, somewhat timid, yet expressing fondness. 
Paulette is not pretty — she is even thought plain ; as for me, 
I think her charming. 

Perhaps that is not on her account, hut pn 'my own. 
Paulette appears to me as a part of One of my happiest re- 
collections. 

It was the evening of a public holiday. Our principal 
buildings were illuminated with festoons of fire, a thousand 
flags waved in the night winds, and 'the fire-works had just 
shot forth their spouts of flame into the midst of the Champs 
de Mars. All of a sudden, one of those unaccountable 
alarms which strike a multitude with panic, fell upon the 
dense crowd : they cry out, they rush on headlong, the 
weaker ones fall, and the frightened crowd tramples them 
down in its convulsive struggles. I escaped from the con- 
fusion by a miracle, and was hastening away, when the cries 
of a perishing child arrested me : I re-entered that human 
chaos, and, after unheard of exertions, I brought Paulette 
out of it at the peril of my life. 

That was two years ago : since then I had not seen the 
child again but at long intervals, and I had almost forgotten 
her ; but Paulette’s memory was that of a grateful heart, 
and she came at the beginning of the year to offer me her 
wishes for my happiness. She brought me, besides, a wall- 
flower in full bloom;' she herself had planted and reared it : 

it was something that belonged wholly to herself; for it 

was by her care, her perseverance, and her patience, that she 
had obtained it. 

The wallflower had grown in a common pot ; but Pam 


12 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


lette, wlio is a bandbox-maker, had put it into a case of var- 
nished paper, ornamented with arabesques. These might 
have been in better taste, but I did not feel the attention 
and good-will the less. 

This unexpected present, the little girl’s modest blushes, 
the compliments she stammered out, dispelled, as by a sun- 
beam, the kind of mist which had gathered round my mind ; 
my thoughts suddenly changed from the leaden tints of even- 
ing to the brightest colours of dawn. I made Paulette sit 
down, and questioned her with a light heart. 

At first the little girl replied by monosyllables ; but very 
soon the tables were turned, and it was I who interrupted 
with short interjections her long and confidential talk. The 
poor child leads a hard life. She was left an orphan long 
since, with a brother and sister, and lives with an old grand- 
mother, who has brought them up to poverty, as she always 
calls it. 

However, Paulette now helps her to make bandboxes, 
her little sister Perrine begins to use the needle, and her 
brother Henry is apprentice to a printer. All would go 
well if it were not for losses and want of work — if it were not 
for clothes which wear out, for appetites which grow larger, 
and for the winter, when you cannot get sunshine for noth- 
ing. Paulette complains that her candles go too quickly, 
and that her wood costs too much. The fireplace in their 
garret is so large, that a fagot makes no more show in it than 
a match ; it is so near the roof, that the wind blows the rain 
down it, and in winter it hails upon the hearth ; so they have 
left off using it. Henceforth they must be content with an 
earthen chafing-dish, upon which they cook their meals. The 
grandmother had often spoken of a stove that was to sell at 
the broker’s close by ; but he asked seven francs for it, and 
the times are too hard for such an expense: the family, 
therefore, resign themselves to the cold for economy ! 

As Paulette spoke, I felt more and more that I was losing 


THE ATTIC NEW-YEAR’S GIFT. 


13 


my fretfulness and low spirits. The first disclosures of the 
little bandbox-maker created within me a wish that soon be* 
came a plan. I questioned her about her daily occupations, 
and she informed me, that on leaving me she must go, with 
her brother, her sister and grandmother, to the different 
people for whom they work. My plan was immediately set- 
tled. I told the child that I would go to see her in the even- 
ing, and I sent her away with fresh thanks. 

I placed the wallflower in the open window, where a ray 
of sunshine bid it welcome ; the birds were singing around, 
the sky had cleared up, and the day, which began so lowering- 
ly, had become bright. I sang as I moved about my room, 
and, having hastily put on my hat and coat, I went out. 

Three o'clock . — All is settled with my neighbour, the 
chimney-doctor ; he will repair my old stove, and answers for 
its being as good as new. At five o’clock we are to set out, 
and put it up in Paulette’s grandmother’s room. 

Midnight . — All has gone off well. At the hour agreed 
upon, I was at the old bandbox-maker’s ; she was still out. 
My Piedmontese* fixed the stove, while I arranged a dozen 
logs in the great fireplace, taken from my winter stock. 1 
shall make up for them, by warming myself with walking, or 
by going to bed earlier. 

heart beat at every step which was heard on the 
staircase ; I trembled lest they should interrupt me in my 
preparations, and should thus spoil my intended surprise. 
But no — see every thing ready : the lighted stove murmurs 
gently, the little lamp burns upon the table, and a bottle of 
oil for it is provided on the shelf. The chimney-doctor is 
gone. Now, my fear lest they should come is changed into 
impatience at their not coming. At last I hear children’s 
voices ; here they are : they push open the door and rush in 
But they all stop in astonishment. 

* In Paris, a chimney sweeper is named “Piedmontese” or “Sa< 
royard,” as they usually come from that country. • 


14 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


At the sight of the lamp, the stove, and the visitor, who 
stands there like a magician in the midst of these won- 
ders, they draw hack almost frightened. Paulette is the first 
to comprehend it, and the arrival of the grandmother., who 
is more slowly mounting the stairs, finished the explanation. 
Then come tears, ecstasies, thanks ! 

But the wonders are not yet ended. The little sister 
opens the oven, and discovers some chestnuts just roasted ; 
the grandmother puts her hand on the bottles of cider ar- 
ranged on the dresser, and I draw forth from the basket that 
I have hidden a cold tongue, a pot of butter, and some fresh 
rolls. 

Now their wonder turns into admiration ; the little fam- 
ily have never seen such a feast ! They lay the cloth, they 
sit down, they eat ; it is a complete banquet for all, and each 
contributes his share to it. I had brought only the supper : 
the bandbox-maker and her children supplied the enjoy 
rnent. 

What bursts of laughter at nothing ! What a hubbub of 
questions which waited for no reply, of replies which an- 
swered no question ! The old woman herself shared in the 
wild merriments of the little ones ! I have always been 
struck at the ease with which the poor forget their wretched- 
ness. Being only used to live for the present, they m^ke a 
gain of every pleasure as soon as it offers itself. But the 
surfeited rich are more difficult to satisfy : they require time 
and every thing to suit before they will consent to be happy. 

The evening has passed like a moment. The old woman 
told me the history of her life, sometimes smiling, sometimes 
drying her eyes. Perrine sang an old ballad with her fresh, 
young voice. Henry told us what he knows of the great wri- 
ters of the day, to whom he has to carry their proofs. At 
last we were obliged to separate, not without fresh thanks on 
the part of the happy family. 

I have come- home slowly, ruminating with a full heart, 


THE CARNIVAL. 


15 


and pjire enjoyment, on tlie simple events of my evening. It 
has given me much comfort, and much instruction. Now, 
no N ew-year’s Day will come amiss to me ; I know that no 
one is so unhappy as to have nothing to give, and nothing to 
veceive. 

As I came in, I met my rich neighbour’s new equipage 
She, too, had just returned from her evening’s party ; and, 
rs she sprang from the carriage-step with feverish impatience, 
( heard her murmur — At last ! 

I, when I left Paulette’s family, said — So soon ! 


CHAPTER II. 

THE CARNIVAL. 

February ZQth. — What a 'noise out of doors ! What is 
the meaning of these shouts and cries ? — Ah ! I recollect, 
this is the last day of the Carnival, and the maskers are pass- 
ing. 

Christianity has not been able to abolish the noisy bac- 
chanalian festivals of the pagan times, but it has changed the 
names. That which it has given to these “ days of liberty’ 
announces the ending of the feasts, and the month of fasting 
which should follow; “ carn-a-vaV'' means literally, “ down 
with flesh meat ! ” It is a forty days farewell to the “ blessed 
pullets and fat hams,” so celebrated by Pantagruel’s min- 
strel. ^Man prepares for privation by satiety, and finishes 
bis sin thoroughly before he begins to repent. 

Why, in all ages and among every people, do we meet 
with some one of these mad festivals ? Must we believe that 
it requires such an effort for men to be reasonable, that the 
weaker ones have need of rest at intervals ? The monks of 
La Trappe, who are condemned to silence by their rule, are 


16 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


allowed to speak once in a month, and on this day they all 
talk at once from the rising to the setting of the sun. 

Perhaps it is the same in the world. As we are obliged 
all the year to be decent, orderly, and reasonable, we mako 
up for such a long restraint during the Carnival. It is a 
door opened to the incongruous fancies and wishes which 
have hitherto been crowded back into a corner of our brain. 
For a moment the slaves become the masters, as in the days 
of the Saturnalia, and every thing is given up to the “ fools 
of the family.” 

The shouts in the Square redouble ; the troops of masks 
increase — on foot, in carriages, and on horseback. It is now 
who can attract the most attention by making a figure for a 
few hours, or by exciting curiosity or envy ; to-morrow they 
will all return, dull and exhausted, to the employments and 
troubles of yesterday. 

Alas ! thought I with vexation, each of us is like these 
masqueraders ; our whole life is often but an unsightly Car- 
nival ! And yet man has need of holidays, to relax his 
mind, rest his body, and open his heart. Can he not have 
them then, without these coarse pleasures ? Economists 
have been long inquiring what is the best disposal of the in- 
dustry of the human race. All ! if I could only discover 
the best disposal of its leisure ! It is easy enough to find it 
work; but who will find it relaxation? Work supplies the 
daily bread ; but it is cheerfulness which gives it a relish. 
0 philosophers ! go in quest of pleasure ! find us amuse- 
ments without brutality, enjoyments without selfishness ; in 
a word, invent a Carnival which will please every body, and 
bring shame to no one. 

Three o'clock . — I have just shut my window, and stirred 
up my fire. As this is a holiday for every body, I will make 
it one for myself, too. So I light the little lamp over which, 
on grand occasions, I make a cup of the coffee that my por- 
tress’s son brought from the Levant, and I look in my book- 
case for one of my favourite authors. 


THE CARNIVAL. 


17 


First, here is the amusing parson of Meudon ; but his 
characters are too fond of talking slang : — Yoltaire ; but he 
disheartens men by always bantering them : — Moliere ; but 
he hinders one’s laughter by making one think: — Lesage; 
let us stop at him. Being profound rather than grave, he 
preaches virtue while ridiculing vice ; if bitterness is some- 
times to be found in his writings, it is always in garb of 
mirth : he sees the miseries of the world without despising 
it, and knows its cowardly tricks without hating it. 

Let us call up all the heroes of his book. G-il Bias, Fab- 
rice, Sangrado, the Archbishop of Granada, the Duke of Ler* 
ma, Aurora, Scipio ! Ye gay or graceful figures, rise before 
my eyes, people my solitude, bring hither for my amusement 
the world-Carnival, of which you are the brilliant maskers ! 

Unfortunately, at the very moment I made this invocation, 
I recollected I had a letter to write which could not be put 
off. One of my attic neighbours came yesterday to ask me 
to do it. He is a cheerful old man, and has a passion for 
pictures and prints. He comes home almost every day with 
a drawing or painting — probably of little value ; for I know 
he lives penuriously, and even the letter that I am to write 
for him shows his poverty. His only son, who was married 
in England, is just dead, and his widow — left without any 
means, and with an old mother and a child — had written to 
beg for a home. M. Antoine asked me first to translate the 
letter, and then to write a refusal. I had promised that he 
should have this answer to day : before every thing, let us 
fulfil our promises. 

The sheet of “ Bath” paper is before me, I have dipped 
my pen into the ink, and I rub my forehead to invite forth 
a sally of ideas, when I perceive that I have not my diction- 
ary ; now, a Parisian who would speak English without a 
dictionary is like a child without leading-strings ; the ground 
trembles under him, and he stumbles at the first step. I 
run then to the bookbinder’s where I left my Johnson, and 
who lives close by in the Square. _ 


18 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


The door is half open; I hear low groans; I enter with- 
out knocking, and I see the bookbinder by the bedside of his 
fellow-lodger ; — this latter has a violent fever and delirium. 
Pierre looks at him perplexed and out of humour. I learn 
from him that his comrade was not able to get up in the 
morning, and that since then he has become worse every 
hour. 

I ask if they have sent for a doctor. 

“ Oh yes, indeed ! ” replied Pierre roughly; “ one must 
have money in one’s pocket for that, and this fellow has on- 
ly debts instead of savings.” 

“ But you,” said I, rather astonished ; “ are you not his 
friend ? ” 

u Priend ! ” interrupted the bookbinder. “ Yes, as much 
as the shaft-horse is friend to the leader : on condition that 
each will take his share of the draught, and eat his feed by 
himself.” 

“You do not intend, however, to leave him without any 
help ? ” 

II Bah ! he may keep in his bed till to-morrow, as I’m 
going to the ball.” 

“ You mean to leave him alone ? ” 

“Well! must I miss a party of pleasure at Courtville* 
because this fellow is light-headed? ” asked Pierre sharply. 
“ I have promised to meet some friends at old Desnoyer’s. 
Those who are sick may take their broth ; my physic is white 
wine.” 

So saying, he untied a bundle, out of which he took the fan- 
cy costume of a waterman, and proceeded to dress himself in it. 

In vain I tried to awaken some fellow-feeling for the un- 
fortunate man who lay groaning there, close by him ; being 
entirely taken up with the thoughts of his expected pleasure, 
Pierre would hardly so much as hear me. At last his coarso 
selfishness provoked me. I began reproaching instead of 


* A Paris Vauxlialx. 


THE CARNIVAL. 


19 


remonstrating with him, and I declared him responsible for 
the consequences which such a desertion must bring upon the 
sick man. 

“ At this the bookbinder, who was just going, stopped 
with an oath, and stamping his foot : “ Am I to spend my 

Carnival in heating water for foot-baths, pray ? ” 

“ You must not leave your comrade to die without help ! ” 
I replied. 

“ Let him go to the hospital, then ! ” 

“ How can he by himself ? ” 

Pierre seemed to make up his mind. 

u Well, I’m going to take him,” resumed he; 11 besides, 
I shall get rid of him sooner. Come, get up, comrade ! ” 
He shook his comrade, who had not taken off his clothes. I 
observed that he was too weak to walk, but the bookbinder 
would not listen : he made him get up, and half dragged, 
half supported him to the lodge of the porter, who ran for a 
hackney'carriage. I saw the sick man get into it, almost 
fainting, with the impatient waterman ; and they both set 
off, one perhaps to die, the other to dine at Courtille gar- 
dens ! 

Six o'clock . — I have been to knock at my neighbour’s 
door, who opened it himself ; and I have given him his letter, 
finished at last, and directed to his son’s widow. M. An- 
toine thanked me gratefully, and made me sit down. 

It was the first time I had been into the attic of the old 
amateur. Curtains stained with damp, and hanging down in 
rags, a cold stove, a bed of straw, two broken chairs, com- 
posed all the furniture. At the end of the room were a great 
number of prints in a heap, and paintings without frames 
turned against the wall. 

At the moment I came in, the old man was making his 
dinner on some hard crusts of bread, which he was soaking 
in a glass of eau sucrte. He perceived that my eyes fell 
upon his hermit fare, and he looked a little ashamed. 


20 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


“ There is nothing to tempt you in my supper, neighbour,’ 
said he with a smile. 

I replied, that at least I thought it a very philosophical 
one for the Carnival. 

M. Antoine shook his head, and went on again with his 
supper. 

a Every one keeps his holidays in his own way,” resum- 
ed he, beginning again to dip a crust into his glass. “ There 
are several sorts of epicures, and all feasts are not meant to 
regale the palate ; there are some also for the ears and the 
eyes.” 

I looked involuntarily round me, as if to seek for the in- 
visible banquet which could make up to him for such a supper. 

Without doubt he understood me ; for he got up slowly, 
and, with the magisterial air of a man confident in what he 
is about to do, he rummaged behind several picture frames, 
drew forth a painting, over which he passed his hand, and 
silently placed it under the light of the lamp. 

It represented a fine-looking old man, seated at table 
with his wife, his daughter, and his children, and singing to 
the accompaniment of musicians who appeared in the back- 
ground. At first sight I recognised the subject, which I 
had often admired at the Louvre, and I declared it to be a 
splendid copy of Jordaens. 

“ A copy ! ” cried M. Antoine ; 11 say an original, neigh- 
bour, and an original retouched by Kubens ! Look closer 
at the head of the old man, the dress of the young woman, 
and the accessories. One can count the pencil strokes of the 
Hercules of painters. It is not only a masterpiece, sir ; it 
is a treasure — a relic ! The picture at the Louvre may be 
a pearl, this is a diamond ! ” 

And resting it against the stove, so as to place it in the 
best light, he fell again to soaking his crusts, without taking 
his eyes off the wonderful picture. One had said that the 
sight of it gave the crusts an unexpected relish, for he chew* 


THE CARNIVAL. 


21 


ed them slowly, and emptied his glass by little sips. His 
shrivelled features became smooth, his nostrils expanded ; it 
was indeed, as he said himself— a feast of the eyes. 

u You see that I also hav^ my treat,” resumed he, nod- 
ding his head with an air of triumph ; “ others may run after 
dinners and balls ; as for me, this is the pleasure I give 
myself for my Carnival.” 

“ But if this painting is really so precious,” replied I, 
“ it ought to be worth a high price.” 

“ Eh ! eh ! ” said M. Antoine, with an air of proud indif- 
ference, “ in good times, a good judge might value it at some- 
where about twenty thousand francs.” 

I started back. # 

“ And you have bought it ? ” cried I. 

“ For nothing,” replied he, lowering his voice ; “ these 
brokers are asses ; mine mistook this for a student’s copy, 
he let me have it for fifty louis, ready money ! This morn- 
ing I took them to him, and now he wishes to be off the 
bargain.” 

“ This morning ! ” repeated I, involuntarily casting my 
eyes on the letter containing the refusal that M. Antoine had 
made me write to his son’s widow, and which was still on the 
little table. 

He took no notice of my exclamation, and went on con- 
templating the work of Jordaens in a kind of ecstasy : — 

“ What a knowledge of chiaroscuro ! ” murmured he, 
.biting his last crust in delight. “ What relief ! what fire ! 
Where can one find such transparency of colour ! such mag- 
ical lights ! such force ! such nature ! ” 

As I was listening to him in silence, he mistook my as- 
tonishment for admiration, and clapped me on the shoulder : — ■ 
“You are dazzled,” said he merrily; “you did not ex- 
pect such a treasure ! What do you say to the bargain I 
have made ! ” 

“ Pardon me,” replied I gravely ; “ but I think you might 
have done better.” 


22 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


M. Antoine raised his head. 

“ How ! ” cried he ; “ do you take me for a man likely 
to he deceived about the merit or value of a painting ? ” 

11 I neither doubt your taste nor your skill ; but I cannot 
help thinking that, for the price of this picture of a family 
party, you might have had — ” 

11 What then ? ” 

“ The family itself, sir.” 

The old amateur cast a look at me, not of anger, but of 
contempt. In his eyes I had evidently just proved myself 
a barbarian, incapable of understanding the arts, and un- 
worthy of enjoying them. He got up without answering me, 
hazily took up the Jordaens, and replaced it in its hiding- 
place, behind the prints. 

It was a sort of dismissal ; I took leave of him, and went 
away. 

Seven o'clock . — When I come in again, I find my water 
boiling over my little lamp, and I busy myself in grinding 
my Mocha, and setting out my coifee things. 

The getting coffee ready is the most delicate and most 
attractive of domestic operations to one who lives alone : it 
is the grand work of a bachelor’s housekeeping. 

Coffee is, so to say, just the mid-point between bodily 
and spiritual nourishment. It acts agreeably, and at the 
same time, upon the senses and the thoughts. Its very fra- 
grance gives a sort of delightful activity to the wits ; it is 
a genius who lends wings to our fancy, and transports it to 
the land of the Arabian Nights. 

When I am buried in my old easy-chair, my feet on the 
fender before a blazing fire, my ear soothed by the singing 
of the coffee-pot which seems to gossip with my fire-irons, 
the sense of smell gently excited by the aroma of the Ara- 
bian bean, and my eyes shaded by my cap pulled down over 
them, it often seems as if each cloud of the fragrant steam 
took a distinct form. As in the mirages of the desert, in 


THE CARNIVAL. 


23 


each, as it rises, I see some image of which my mind had 
been longing for the reality. 

At first the vapour increases, and its colour deepens ; I 
see a cottage on a hill-side. Behind is a garden shut in by 
a whitethorn hedge, and through the garden runs a brook, 
on the banks of which I hear the bees humming. 

Then the view opens still more. See those fields planted 
with apple-trees, and in which I distinguish a plough and 
horses waiting for their master ! Further on, in a part of 
the wood which rings with the sound of the axe, I perceive 
the woodman’s hut, roofed with turf and branches ; and, in 
the midst of all these rural pictures, I seem to see a figure 
of myself gliding about. It is my ghost walking in my dream ! 

The bubbling of the water, ready to boil over, compels 
me to break off my meditations, in order to fill up the coffee- 
pot. I then remember that I have no cream ; I take my 
tin can off the hook, and go down to the milk-woman’s. 

Mother Denis is a hale country woman from Savoy, which 
she left when quite young ; and, contrary to the custom of 
the Savoyards, she has not gone back to it again. She has 
neither husband nor child, notwithstanding the title they 
give her ; but her kindness, which never sleeps, makes her 
worthy of the name of mother. 

A brave creature ! Left by herself in the battle of life, 
she makes good her humble place in it by working, singing, 
helping others, and leaving the rest to God. 

At the door of the milk-shop I hear loud bursts of laugh- 
ter. In one of the corners of the shop three children are 
sitting on the ground. They wear the sooty dress of Savoy- 
ard boys, and in their hand they hold large slices of bread 
and cheese. The youngest is besmeared up to the eyes with 
his, and that is the reason of their mirth. 

Mother Denis points them out to me. 

“ Look at the, little lambs, how they enjoy themselves ! ” 
said she, putting her hand on the head of the little glutton. 


24 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


u He has had no breakfast,” puts in one of the others by 
way of excuse. 

“ Poor little thing ! ” said the .milkwoman ; a he is left 
alone in the streets of Paris, where he can find no other father 
than the All-good Grod ! ” 

“ And that is why you make yourself a mother to them ? ” 
I replied gently. 

“ What I do is little enough,” said mother Denis, mea- 
suring out my milk ; “ but every day I get some of them to- 
gether out of the street, that for once they may have enough 
to eat. Dear children ! their mothers will make it up to me 
in heaven. Not to mention that they recall my native moun- 
tains to me ; when they sing and dance, I seem to see our 
old father again.” 

Here her eyes filled with tears. 

u So you are repaid by your recollections for the good 
you do them ? ” resumed I. 

“ Yes ! yes ! ” said she, “ and by their happiness too ! 
The laughter of these little ones, sir, is like a bird’s song ; it 
makes you gay, and gives you heart to\live.” 

As she spoke she cut some fresh slices of bread and cheese, 
and added some apples and a handful of nuts to them. 

“ Come, my little dears,” she cried, “ put these into your 
pockets against to-morrow.” 

Then, turning to me — 

. “ To-day I am ruining myself,” added she ; “ but we 
must all have our Carnival.” 

I came away without saying a word : I was too much 
affected. 

At last I have discovered what true pleasure is. After 
having seen the egotism of sensuality and of intellect, I have 
found the happy self-sacrifice of goodness. Pierre, M. An- 
toine, and Mother Denis, had each kept their Carnival ; but 
for the two first, it was only a feast for the senses, or tha 
mind ; whilst for the third, it was a feast for the heart. 


WHAT WE MAY LEARN BY LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW. 25 


CHAPTER III. 

WHAT WE MAY LEARN BY LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW. 

March 2>rd. — A poet has said that life is the dream of a 
shadow : he had better have compared it to a night of fever ! 
What alternate fits of restlessness and sleep ! what discom- 
fort ! what sudden starts ! what ever-returning thirst ! what 
a chaos of mournful and confused fancies ! We can neither 
sleep nor wake ; we seek in vain for repose, and we stop 
short on the brink of action. Two-thirds of human existence 
are wasted in hesitation, and the last in repenting. 

When I say human existence , I mean my own ! We are 
so made that each of us regards himself as the mirror of 
the community : what passes in our minds infallibly seems 
to us a history of the universe. Every man is like the 
drunkard who reports an earthquake, because he feels himself 
staggering. 

And why am I uncertain and restless — I, a- poor day- 
labourer in the world — who fill an obscure station in a cor- 
ner of it, and whose work it avails itself of, without heed- 
ing the workman ? I will tell you, my unseen friend, for 
whom these lines are written; my unknown brother, on 
whom the solitary call in sorrow ; my imaginary confidant, 
to whom all monologues are addressed, and who is but the 
shadow of our own conscience. 

A great event has happened in my life ! A cross-road 
has suddenly opened in the middle of the monotonous way 
along which I was travelling quietly, and without thinking 
of it. Two roads present themselves, and I must choose* 
between them. One is only the continuation of that I have 
followed till now : the other is wider, and exhibits won- 
drous prospects. On the first there is nothing to fear, but 
also little to hope ; on the other, great dangers and great 
2 


20 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


fortune. In a word, the question is, whether I shall give up 
the humble office in which I thought to die, for one of those 
bold speculations in which chance alone is banker ! Ever 
since yesterday I have consulted with myself ; I have com- 
pared the two, and I remain undecided. 

Where shall I get any light — who will advise me ? 

Sunday , 4 th. — See the sun coming out from the thick 
fogs of wipter ; Spring announces its approach ; a soft breeze 
skims over the roofs, and my wallflower begins to blow 
again ! 

We are near that sweet season of fresh green , of which 
the poets of the sixteenth century sang with so much feeling: — 

How the gladsome month of May 
All things newly doth array ; 

Fairest lady, let me too 
In thy love my life renew. 

The chirping of the sparrows calls me : they claim the 
crumbs I scatter to them every morning. I open my win- 
dow, and the prospect of roofs opens out before me in all its 
splendour. 

He who has only lived on a first floor, has no idea of the 
picturesque variety of such a view. He has never con- 
templated these tile-coloured heights which intersect each 
other ; he has not followed with his eyes these gutter-valleys, 
where the fresh verdure of the attic gardens waves, the deep 
shadows which evening spreads over the slated slopes, and 
the sparkling of windows which the setting sun has kindled 
to a blaze of fire. He has not studied the flora of these 
Alps of civilisation, carpeted by lichens and mosses ; he is 
not acquainted with the thousand inhabitants which people 
them, from the microscopic insect to the domestic cat — that 
Reynard of the roofs who is always on the prowl, or in 
ambush ; he has not witnessed the thousand aspects of a clear 
or a cloudy sky; nor the thousand effects of light, which 


WHAT WE MAY LEARN BY LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW. 27 

make these upper regions a theatre with ever-changing 
scenes ! How many times have my days of leisure passed 
away in contemplating this wonderful sight — in discovering 
its darker or brighter episodes — in seeking, in short, in this 
unknown, world for the impressions of travelling that wealthy 
tourists look for lower down ! 

Nine o'clock . — But why, then, have not my winged 
neighbours picked up the crumbs I have scattered for them 
before my window ? I see them fly away, come back, perch 
upon the ledges of the windows, and chirp at the sight of the 
feast they are usually so ready to devour ! It is not my 
presence that frightens them; I have accustomed them to eat 
out of my hand. Then, why is this fearful suspense ? In 
vain I look around ; the roof is clear, the windows near are 
closed. I crumble the bread that remains from my break- 
fast to attract them by an ampler feast. Their chirpings 
increase, they bend down their heads, the boldest approach 
upon the wing, but without daring to alight. 

Come, come, my sparrows are the victims of one of the 
foolish panics which make the funds fall at the Bourse ! It 
is plain that birds are not more reasonable than men ! 

With this reflection I was about to shut my window, 
when all of a sudden I perceived, in a spot of sunshine on 
my right, the shadow of two pricked-up ears ; then a paw 
advanced, then the head of a tabby-cat showed itself at the 
corner of the gutter. The cunning fellow was lying there in 
wait, hoping the crumbs would bring him some game. 

And I had accused my guests of cowardice ! I was so 
sure that no danger could menace them ! I thought I had 
looked well every where ! I had only forgotten the corner 
behind me ! 

In life, as on the roofs, how many misfortunes come from 
having forgotten a single corner! 

Ten o'clock . — I cannot leave my window ; the rain and 
the cold have kept it shut so long, that I must reconnoitre 


28 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


all the environs to be able to take possession of them again. 
My eyes search in succession all the points of the jumbled 
and confused prospect, passing on, or stopping, according to 
what they light upon. 

H Ah ! see the windows upon which they formerly loved to 
rest; they are those of two unknown neighbours, -whose 
different habits they have long remarked. 

One is a poor workwoman, who rises before sunrise, and 
whose profile is shadowed upon her little muslin window cur- 
tain far into the evening; the other is a young lady-singer, 
whose vocal flourishes sometimes reach my attic by snatches. 
When their windows are open, that of the workwoman dis- 
covers a humble but decent abode, the other, an elegantly fur- 
nished room; but to-day a crowd of tradespeople throng the 
latter: they take down the silk hangings and carry off the furni- 
ture, and I now remember that the young singer passed under 
my window this morning with her veil down, and walking with 
the hasty step of one who suffers some inward trouble. Ah ! 
I guess it all. Her means are exhausted in elegant fancies, 
or have been taken away by some unexpected misfortune, and 
now she has fallen from luxury to indigence. While the 
workwoman manages not only to keep her little room, but 
also to furnish it with decent comfort by her steady toil, 
that of the singer is become the property of brokers. The 
one sparkled for a moment on the wave of prosperity ; the 
other sails slowly but safely along the coast of a humble and 
laborious industry 

Alas ! is there not here a lesson for us all ? Is it really 
in hazardous experiments, at the end of which we shall meet' 
with wealth or ruin, that the wise man should employ his 
years of strength and freedom ? Ought he to consider life 
as a regular employment which brings its daily wages, or as 
a game in which the future is determined by a few throws ? 
Why seek the risk of extreme chances ? for what end hasten 
to riches by dangerous roads? Is it really certain that 


WHAT WE MAY LEARN BY LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW. 29 

happiness is the prize of brilliant successes, rather than of 
a wisely accepted poverty ? Ah ! if men hut knew in what 
a small dwelling joy can live, and how little it costs to 
furnish it ! 

Tivelve o'clock . — I have been walking up and down my 
attic for a long time, with my arms folded and my eyes on 
the ground ! My doubts increase, like shadows encroaching 
more and more on some bright space : my fears multiply ; 
and the uncertainty becomes every moment more painful to 
me ! It is necessary for me to decide to-day, and before the 
evening ! I hold the dice of my future fate in my hands, 
and I dare not throw them. 

Three o'clock . — The sky has become cloudy, and a cold 
wind begins to blow from the west ; all the windows which 
were opened to the sunshine of a beautiful day are shut 
again. Only on the opposite side of the street, the lodger 
on the last story has not yet left his balcony. 

One knows him to be a soldier by his regular walk, 
his grey mustaches, and the ribbon which decorates his but- 
tonhole : indeed, one might have guessed as much from the 
care he takes of the little garden which is the ornament of 
his balcony in mid-air ; for there are two things especially 
loved by all old soldiers — flowers and children. They have 
been so long obliged to look upon the earth as a field of bat- 
tle, and so long cut off from the peaceful pleasures of a quiet 
lot, that they seem to begin life at an age when others end 
it. The tastes of their early years, ""which were arrested by 
the stern duties of war, suddenly break out again with their 
white hairs ; and are like the savings of youth which they 
spend again in old age. Besides, they have been condemned 
to be destroyers for so long, that perhaps they feel a secret 
pleasure in creating, and seeing life spring up again : the 
beauty of weakness has a grace and an attraction the more 
for those who have been the agents of unbending force ; and 
the watching over the frail germs of life has all the charm of 
novelty for these old workmen of death. 


30 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


Therefore the cold wind has not driven my neighbour 
from his balcony. He is digging up the earth in his green 
boxes, and carefully sowing in the seeds of the scarlet nastur- 
tium, convolvulus, and sweet pea. Henceforth he will come 
every day to watch for their first sprouting, to protect the 
young shoots from weeds or insects, to arrange the strings 
for the tendrils to climb by, and carefully to regulate their 
supply of water and heat ! 

How much labour to bring in the desired harvest . For 
that how many times shall I see him brave cold or heat, 
wind or sun, as he does to-day ! But then, in the hot 
summer days, when the blinding dust whirls in clouds 
through our streets, when the eye, dazzled by the glare of 
white stucco, knows not where to rest, and the glowing roofs 
reflect their heat upon us to burning, the old soldier will sit 
in his arbour and perceive nothing but green leaves and 
flowers around him, and the breeze will come cool and fresh 
to him through these perfumed shades. His assiduous care 
will be rewarded at last. 

We must sow the seeds, and tend the growth, if we would 
enjoy the flower. 

Four o'clock . — The clouds which have been gathering in 
the horizon for a long time are become darker ; it thunders 
loudly, and the rain pours down ! Those who are caught in 
it fly in every direction, some laughing and some crying. 

I always find particular amusement in these helter-skel- 
ters, caused by a sudden storm. It seems as if each one, 
when thus taken by surprise, loses the factitious character 
the world or habit has given him, and appears in his true 
colours. 

See, for example, that big man with deliberate step, who 
suddenly forgets his indifference made to order, and runs 
like a schoolboy ! He is a' thrifty city gentleman, who, with 
all his fashionable airs, is afraid to spoil his hat. 

That pretty lady yonder, on the contrary, whose looks 


WHAT WE MAY LEARN BY LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW. 31 


are so modest, and whose dress in so elaborate, slackens her 
pace with the increasing storm. She seems to find pleasure 
in braving it, and does not think of her velvet cloak spotted 
by the hail ! She is evidently a lioness in sheep’s clothing. 

Here, a young man who was passing stops to catch some 
of the hailstones in his hand, and examines them. By his 
quick and business-like walk just now, you would have taken 
aim for a taxgatherer on his rounds, when he is a young phi- 
losopher, studying the effects of electricity. And those 
schoolboys who leave their ranks to run after the sudden 
gusts of a March whirlwind ; those girls, just now so demure, 
and who now fly with bursts of laughter ; those national 
guards, who quit the martial attitude of their days of duty, 
to take refuge under a porch ! The storm has caused all 
these transformations. 

See, it increases !. The hardiest are obliged to seek 
shelter. I see every one rushing towards the shop in front 
of my window, which a bill announces is to let. It is for the 
fourth time within a few months. A year ago, all the skill 
of the joiner and the art of the painter were employed in 
beautifying it, but their works are already destroyed, by the 
leaving of so many tenants ; the cornices of the front are 
disfigured by mud; the arabesques on the doorway are 
spoiled by bills posted upon them to announce the sale of 
the effects. The splendid shop has lost some of its embellish- 
ments with each change of the tenant. See it now empty, 
and left open to the passers-by. How much does its fate re- 
semble that of so many who, like it, only change their occu- 
pation to hasten the faster to ruin ! 

I am struck by this last reflection : since the morning 
every thing seems to speak to me, and with the same warn- 
ing tone. Every thing says — “ Take care ! be content with 
your happy, though humble lot; happiness can only be re- 
tained by constancy ; do not forsake your old patrons for 
the protection of those who are unknown ! ” 


32 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


Are they the outward objects which speak thus, or does 
the warning come from within? Is it not I myself who 
give this language to all that surrounds me ? The world is 
but an instrument, to which we give sound at will. But 
what does it signify if it teaches us wisdom ? The low voice 
which speaks in our breasts is always a friendly voice, for it 
tells us what we are, that is to say, what is our capability. 
Bad conduct results, for the most part, from mistaking our 
calling. There are so many fools and knaves, because there 
are so few men who know themselves. The question is not 
to discover what will suit us, but for what we are suited ! 

What should I do in the midst of these experienced 
financial speculators ? I am a poor sparrow, born among 
the house-tops, and should always fear the enemy crouching 
in the dark corner ; I am a prudent workman, and should 
think of the business of my neighbours who so suddenly dis- 
appeared ; I am a timid observer, and should call to mind 
the flowers so slowly raised by the old soldier, or the shop 
brought to ruin by constant change of masters. Away from 
me, ye banquets, over which diangs the sword of Damocles ! 
I am a country mouse. Give me my nuts and hollow tree, 
and I ask nothing beside — except security. 

And why this insatiable craving for riches ? Does a man 
drink more when he drinks from a large glass ? From 
whence comes that universal dread of mediocrity, the fruit- 
ful mother of peace and liberty ? Ah ! there is the evil 
which, above every other, it should be the aim of both public 
and private education to anticipate ! If that were got rid 
of, what treasons would be spared, what baseness avoided, 
what a chain of excess and crime would be for ever broken ! 
W e award the palm to charity, and to self-sacrifice : but, 
above all, let us award it to moderation, for it is the great 
social virtue. Even when it does not create the others, it 
stands instead of them. 

Six o'clock . — I have written a letter of thanks to the pro 


LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 


33 


motors of tbe new speculation, and have declined their offer ! 
This decision has restored my peace of mind. I stopped 
singing, like the cobbler, as long as I entertained the hope 
of riches : it is gone, and happiness is come back ! 

0, beloved and gentle Poverty ! pardon me for having 
for a moment wished to fly from thee, as I would from Want ; 
stay here for ever with thy charming sisters, Pity, Patience, 
Sobriety, and Solitude ; be ye my queens and my instruc- 
tors ; teach me the stern duties of life ; remove far from my 
abode the weaknesses of heart, and giddiness of head, which 
follow prosperity. Holy poverty ! teach me to endure with- 
out complaining, to impart without grudging, to seek the 
end of life higher than in pleasure, further off than in power. 
Thou givest the body strength, thou makest the mind more 
firm ; and, thanks to thee, this life, to which the rich attach 
themselves as to a rock, becomes a bark of which death may 
cut the cable without awakening all our fears. Continue to 
sustain me, 0 thou whom Christ hath called Blessed . 


CHAPTER IV. 

LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 

April 9th . — The fine evenings are come back ; the trees 
begin to put forth their shoots ; hyacinths, jonquils, violets, 
and lilacs, perfume the baskets of the flower-girls ; all the 
world have begun their walks again on the quays and boule- 
vards. After dinner, I, too, descend from my attic to 
breathe the evening air. 

It is the hour when Paris is seen in all its beauty. Du- 
ring the day the plaster fronts of the houses weary the eye 
by their monotonous whiteness ; heavily-laden carts make the 
streets shake under their huge wheels; the eager crowd. 

2 * 


54 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 

taken up by the one fear of losing a moment from business 
cross and jostle one another ; the aspect of the city altogether 
has something harsh, restless, and flurried about it : but, as 
soon as the stars appear, every thing is changed ; the glare 
of the white houses is quenched in the gathering shades; you 
hear no more any rolling but that of the carriages on their 
way to some party of pleasure ; you see only the lounger or 
the light-hearted passing by ; work has given place to leisure. 
Now each one may breathe after the fierce race through the 
business of the day, and whatever strength remains to him 
he gives to pleasure ! See the ball-rooms lighted up, the 
theatres open, the eating-shops along the walks set out with 
dainties, and the twinkling lanterns of the newspaper criers. 
Decidedly Paris has laid aside the pen, the ruler, and the 
apron ; after the day spent in work, it must have the evening 
for enjoyment ; like the masters of Thebes, it has put off all 
serious matters till to-morrow. 

I love to take part in this happy hour ; not to mix in the 
general gaiety, but to contemplate it. If the enjoyments of 
others embitter jealous minds, they strengthen the humble 
spirit ; they are the beams of sunshine, which open the two 
beautiful flowers called trust and hope. 

Although alone in the midst of the smiling multitude, I 
do not feel myself isolated from it ; for its gaiety is reflected 
upon me : it is my own kind, my own family, who are enjoy- 
ing life, and I take a brother’s share in their happiness. We 
are all fellow-soldiers in this earthly battle, and what does it 
matter on whom the honours of the victory fall ? If fortune 
passes by without seeing us, and pours her favours on others, 
let us console ourselves, like the friend of Parmenio, by say- 
ing — “ Those, too, are Alexanders.” 

While making these reflections, I was going on as chance 
took me. I crossed from one pavement to another, I retra- 
ced my steps, I stopped before the shops, or to read the 
hand-bills. How many things there are to learn in the 


LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 


35 


streets of Paris ! What a museum it is ! Unknown fruits, 
foreign arms, furniture of old times or other lands, animals 
of all climates, statues of great men, costumes of distant na- 
tions ! It is the world seen in samples ! 

Let us then look at this people, whose knowledge is gained 
from the shop windows and the tradesman’s display of goods. 
Nothing has been taught them, but they have a rude notion 
of every thing. They have seen the ananas at Chevets, a 
palm-tree in the Jar din des Plantes, sugar-canes selling on 
the Pont-Neuf. The Red-skins, exhibited in the Valentino 
Hall, have taught them to mimic the dance of the bison, and 
to smoke the calumet of peace ; they have seen Carter’s lions 
fed ; they know the principal national costumes contained in 
Babin’s collection ; Goupil’s display of prints has placed the 
tiger-hunts of Africa, and the sittings of the English Parlia- 
ment, before their eyes ; they have become acquainted with 
Queen Victoria, the Emperor of Austria, and Kossuth, at 
the office door of the Illustrated Neivs. We can certainly 
instruct them, but not astonish them; for nothing is com- 
pletely new to them. You may take the Paris ragamuffin 
through the five quarters of the world, and at every wonder 
with which you think to surprise him, he will settle the 
matter with that favourite and conclusive answer of his class 
— I know. 

But this variety of exhibitions, which makes Paris the fair 
of the world, does not merely offer a means of instruction to 
him who walks through it ; it is a continual spur for rousing 
the imagination, a first step of the ladder always set up be- 
fore us in vision. When we see them, how many voyages do 
we take in imagination, what adventures do we dream of, 
what pictures do we sketch ! I never look at that shop near 
the Chinese Baths, with its tapestry hangings of Florida jes- 
samine, and filled with magnolias, without seeing the forest 
glades of the new world, described by the author of Atala, 
opening themselves out before me. 


36 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


Then, when this study of things, and this discourse ol 
reason begin to tire you, look around you ! What contrasts 
of figures and faces you see in the crowd ! what a vast field 
for the exercise of meditation ! A half-seen glance, or a few 
words caught as the speaker passes by, open a thousand vis- 
tas to your imagination. You wish to comprehend what 
these imperfect disclosures mean, and as the antiquary en- 
deavours to decipher the mutilated inscription on some old 
monument, you build up a history on a gesture or on a word ! 
— These are the stirring sports of the mind, which finds m 
fiction a relief from the wearisome dulness of the actual. 

Alas ! as I was just now passing by the carriage entrance 
of a great house, I noticed a sad subject for one of these 
histories. A man was sitting in the darkest corner with his 
head bare, and holding out his hat for the charity of those 
who passed. His threadbare coat had that look of neatness 
which marks that destitution has been met by a long struggle. 
He had carefully buttoned it up, to hide the want of a shirt. 
His face was half hid under his long grey hair, and his eyes 
closed, as if he wished to escape the sight of his own humi- 
liation, and he remained mute and motionless. Those who 
passed him took no notice of the beggar, who sat in silence 
and darkness ! They had been so lucky as to escape com- 
plaints and importunities, and were glad to turn away their 
eyes too. 

All at once the great gate turned on its hinges ; and a 
very low carriage, lighted with silver lamps, and drawn by 
two black horses, came slowly out, and took the road towards 
the Faubourg St. Germain. I could just distinguish, within, 
the sparkling diamonds and the flowers of a ball-dress ; the 
glare of the lamps passed like a bloody streak over the pale 
face of the beggar, and showed his look as his eyes opened 
and followed the rich man’s equipage until it disappeared in 
the night. 

I dropped a small piece of money into the hat he was 
holding out, and passed on quickly. 


LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 


3 1 


I had just fallen unexpectedly upon the two saddest 
secrets of the disease which troubles the age we live in ; the 
envious hatred of him. who suffers want, and the selfish for- 
getfulness of him who lives in affluence. 

All the enjoyment of my walk was gone ; I left off look- 
ing about me, and retired into my own heart. The animated 
and moving sight in the streets gave place to inward medita- 
tion upon all the painful problems which have been written 
for the last four thousand years at the bottom of each human 
struggle, but which are propounded more clearly than ever 
in our days. 

I pondered on the uselessness of so many contests, in 
which defeat and victory only displace each other by turns, 
and on the mistaken zealots who have repeated from genera- 
tion to generation the bloody history of Cain and Abel : and, 
saddened with these mournful reflections, I walked on as 
chance took me, until the silence all around insensibly drew 
me out from* my own thoughts. 

I had reached one of the remote streets, in which those 
who would live in comfort and without ostentation, and who 
love serious reflection, deKght to find a home. There were 
no shops along the dimly lit pavement ; one heard no sounds 
but of the distant carriages, and of the steps of some of the 
inhabitants returning quietly home. 

I instantly recognized the street, though I had only been 
there once before. 

That was two years ago. I was walking at the time by 
the side of the Seine, to which the lights on the quays and 
bridges gave the aspect of a lake surrounded by a garland 
of stars ; and I had reached the Louvre, when I was stopped 
by a crowd collected near the parapet : they had gathered 
round a child of about six, who was crying, and I asked the 
cause of his tears. 

“ It seems that he was sent to walk in the Tuileries,” said 
a mason, who was returning from his work with his trowel 


38 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


in his hand ; “ the servant whd^ook care of him met with 
some friends there, and told the child to wait for him while 
he went to get a drink ; but I suppose the drink made him 
more thirsty, for he has not come back, and the child cannot 
find his way home.” 

“ Why do they not ask him his name, and where he 
lives ? ” 

“ They have been doing it for the last hour ; but all he 
can say is, that he is called Charles, and that his father is 
M. Duval — there are twelve hundred Duvals in Paris.” 

“ Then he does not know in what part of the town he 
lives ? ” 

I should think not, indeed ! Don’t you see that he is a 
gentleman’s child ? He has never gone out except in a car- 
riage, or with a servant ; he does not know what to do by 
himself.” 

Here the mason was interrupted by some of the ’voices 
rising above the others. 

(£ We cannot leave him in the street,” said some. 

“ The child-stealers would carry him off,” continued 
others. 

“We must take him to the overseer.” 

“ Or to the police-office.” 

“ That’s the thing — come, little one ! ” 

But the child, frightened by these suggestions of danger, 
and at the names of police and overseer, cried louder, and 
drew back towards the parapet. In vain they tried to per- 
suade him ; his fears made him resist the more, and the most 
eager began to get weary, when the voice of a little boy was 
heard through the confusion. 

“ I know him well — I do,” said he, looking at the lost 
child ; “ he belongs to our part of the town.” 

“ What part is it ? ” 

“Yonder, on the other side of the Boulevards : Rue des 
Mag asms” 


LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 


3G 


“ And you have seen him before ?” 

“Yes, yes ! he belongs to the great house at the end of 
the street, where there is an iron gate with gilt points.” 

The child quickly raised his head, and stopped crying. 
The little boy answered all the questions that were put to 
him, and gave such details as left no room for doubt. The 
other child understood him, for he went up to him as if to put 
himself under his protection. 

“Then you )an take him to his parents?” asked the 
mason, who had listened with real interest to the little boy’s 
account. 

“ I don’t care if I do,” replied he ; “ it’s the way I’m 
going.” . 

“ Then you will take charge of him ? ” 

“ He has only to come with me.” 

And, taking up the basket he had put down on the pave- 
ment, ’he set off towards the postern gate of the Louvre. 

The lost child followed him. 

“ I hope he will take him right,” said I, when I saw 
them go away. 

“ Never fear,” replied the mason ; “ the little one in the 
blouse is the same age as the other ; but, as the saying is, 
‘ he knows black from white poverty, you see, is a famous 
schoolmistress ! ” 

The crowd dispersed ; for my part, I went towards the 
Louvre : the thought came into my head to follow the two 
children, so as to guard against any mistake. 

I was not long in overtaking them ; they were walking 
side by side, talking, and already quite familiar with one 
another. The contrast in their dress then struck me. Lit- 
tle Duval wore one of those fanciful children’s dresses which 
are expensive as well as in good taste ; his coat was skilfully 
fitted to his figure, his trousers come down in plaits from 
his waist to. his boots of polished leather with mother-of- 
pearl buttons, and his ringlets were half hid by a velvet cap. 


40 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


The appearance of his guide, on the contrary, was that of the 
class who dwell on the extreme borders of poverty, but who 
there maintain their ground with no surrender. His old 
blouse, patched with pieces of different shades, indicated the 
perseverance of an industrious mother struggling against the 
wear and tear of time ; his trousers were become too short, 
and showed his stockings darned over and over again j and 
it was evident that his shoes were not made for him. 

The countenances of the two children were not less dif- 
ferent than their dresses. That of the first was delicate and 
refined ; his clear blue eye, his fair skin, and his smiling 
mouth, gave him a charming look of innocence and happi- 
ness ; the features of the other, on the contrary, had some- 
thing rough in them ; his eye was quick and lively, his com- 
plexion dark, his smile less merry than shrewd ; all showed 
a mind sharpened by too early experience : he boldly walked 
through the middle of the streets thronged by carriages, and 
followed their countless turnings without hesitation. 

I found, on asking him, that every day he carried dinner 
to his father, who was then working on the left bank of the 
Seine ; and this responsible duty had made him careful and 
prudent. He had learned those hard but forcible lessons of 
necessity which nothing can equal, or supply the place of. 
Unfortunately the wants of his poor family had kept him 
from school, and he seemed to feel the loss ; for he often 
stopped before the print-shops, and asked his companion to 
read him the names of the engravings. In this way we 
reached the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, which the little 
wanderer seemed to know again ; notwithstanding his fatigue, 
he hurried on ; he was agitated by mixed feelings ; at the 
sight of his house he uttered a cry, and ran towards the iron 
gate with the gilt points ; a lady who was standing at the 
entrance received him in her arms, and from the exclama 
tions of joy, and the sound of kisses, I soon perceived sh« 
was his mother. 


LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 


41 


Not seeing either the servant or child return, she had 
sent in search of them in every direction, and was waiting 
for them in intense anxiety. 

I explained to her in a few words what had happened ; 
she thanked me warmly, and looked round for the little hoy 
who had recognized and brought back her son, but while we 
were talking, he had disappeared. 

It was for the first time since then, that I had come into 
this part of Paris. Did the mother continue grateful ? 
Had the children met again, and had the happy chance of 
their first meeting lowered between them that barrier which 
may mark the different ranks of men, but should not divide 
them ? 

While putting these questions to myself, I slackened my 
pace, and fixed my eyes on the great gate which I just per- 
ceived. All at once I saw it open, and two children appear- 
ed at the entrance. Although much grown, I recognized 
them at first sight ; they were the child who was found near 
the parapet of the Louvre, and his young guide. But the 
dress of the latter was greatly changed : his blouse of grey 
cloth was neat, and even spruce, and was fastened round the 
waist by a polished leather belt ; he wore strong shoes, but 
made to his feet, and had on a new cloth cap. 

Just at the moment I saw him, he held in his two hands 
an enormous bunch of lilacs, to which his companion was 
trying to add narcissuses and primroses ; the two children 
laughed, and parted with a friendly good-bye. M. Duval’s 
somdid not go in till he had seen the other turn the corner 
of the street. 

Then I accosted the latter, and reminded him of our 
former meeting ; he looked at me for a moment, and then 
seemed to recollect me. 

“ Forgive me if I do not make you a bow,” said he mer- 
rily ; “ but I want both my hands for the nosegay Mr. 
Charles has given me.” 


42 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


“ You are, then, become great friends ?” said I. 

“ Oh ! I should think so ” said the child : “ and now 
father is rich, too ! ” 

“ How’s that ?” 

“ M. Duval lent him a little money ; he has taken a 
shop, where he works on his own account : and, as for me, I 
go to school.” 

“ Yes,” replied I, remarking for the first time the cross 
which decorated his little coat; “and I see that you are 
head-boy ! ” 

“ Mr. Charles helps me to learn, and so I am come to 
be the first in the class.” 

“ Are you now going to your lessons ? ” 

“ Yes, and he has given me some lilacs; for he has a 
garden where we play together, and where my mother can 
always have flowers.” 

“ Then it is the same as if it were partly your own.” 

“ So it is ! Ah ! they are good neighbours, indeed ! 
But here I am; good-bye, sir.” 

He nodded to me with a smile, and disappeared. 

I went on with my walk, still pensive, but with a feeling 
of relief. If I had elsewhere witnessed the painful contrast 
between affluence and want, here I had found the true union 
of riches and poverty. Hearty good-will had smoothed 
down the more rugged inequalities on both sides, and had 
opened a road of true neighbourhood and fellowship between 
the humble workshop and the stately mansion. Instead of 
hearkening to the voice of interest, they had both listened 
to that of self-sacrifice, and there was no place left for con- 
tempt or envy. Thus, instead of the beggar in rags, that I 
had seen at the other do^r cursing the rich man, I had found 
here the happy child of the labourer loaded with flowers, and 
blessing him ! The problem, so difficult and so dangerous 
to examine into with no regard but for the rights of it, I 
had just seen solved by love. 


COMPENSATION. 


43 


CHAPTER V. 

COMPENSATION. 

Sunday *, May ZYth . — Capital cities have one thing pe- 
culiar to them ; their days of rest seem to he the signal for 
a general dispersion and flight. Like birds that are just re- 
stored to liberty, the people come out of their stone cages, 
and joyfully fly towards the country. It is who shall find a 
green hillock for a seat, or the shade of a wood for a shel- 
ter ; they gather May flowers, they run about the fields ; 
the town is forgotten until the evening, when they return 
with sprigs of blooming hawthorn in their hats, and their 
hearts gladdened by pleasant thoughts and recollections of 
the past day ; the next day they return again to their har- 
ness, and to work. 

These rural adventures are most remarkable at Paris. 
When the fine weather comes, clerks, shopkeepers, and 
working men, look forward impatiently for the Sunday as 
the day for trying a few hours of this pastoral life; they ; 
walk through six miles of grocers’ shops and public-houses 

* The religious character of Sunday is neglected in Paris at least 
as much as it is in London ; but it must not be supposed that this is 
necessarily indicated in the incidents and tone of this chapter. The 
differences of national habits must be taken into consideration. The 
religious Frenchman goes to church while the Englishman is lying 
in bed, and takes his stroll while the latter is at church. Our reli- 
gious feelings (if we have any) must be shocked by the open shops 
and theatres of Paris on a Sunday : but those of the Frenchman are 
equally shocked by seeing our churches entirely shut up on six 
days of the week, and on Sundays only open for short and stated 
times ; and he asks whether his love of amusement on the seventh 
day is worse than our appetite for money on the other six. There 
is ampltf room for charity, but none for censorious judgment, on 
either side. — Translator. 


44 A.N ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 

in ilie faubourgs, in the sole hope of finding a real turnip 
field. The father of a family begins the practical education 
of his son by showing him wheat which has not taken the 
form of a loaf, and cabbage “ in its wild state.” Heaven 
only knows the encounters, the discoveries, the adventures, 
that are met with ! What Parisian has not had his Odys- 
sey in an excursion through the suburbs, and would not be 
able to write a companion to the famous “ Travels by land 
and by sea from Paris to St. Cloud . ? ” 

We do not now speak of that floating population from all 
parts, for whom our French Babylon is the caravanserai of 
Europe ; a phalanx of thinkers, artists, men of business, and 
travellers who, like Homer’s hero, have arrived in their in- 
tellectual country after having seen “ many peoples and cit- 
ies;” but of the settled Parisian, who keeps his appointed 
place, and lives on his own floor like the oyster on his rock, 
a curious vestige of the credulity, the slowness, and the sim- 
plicity of bygone ages. 

For one of the singularities of Paris is, that it unites 
twenty populations completely different in character and 
manners. By the side of the gipsies of commerce and of 
art, who wander through all the several stages of fortune or 
fancy, live a quiet race of people with an independence, or 
with regular work, whose existence resembles the dial of a 
clock, on which the same hand points by turns to the same 
hours. If no other city can show more brilliant and more 
stirring forms of life, no other contains more obscure and 
more tranquil ones. Great cities are like the sea ; ptorms 
only agitate the surface : if you go to the bottom, you find a 
region inaccessible to the tumult and the noise. 

For my part, I have settled on the verge of this region, 
but do not actually live in it. I am removed from the tur- 
moil of the world, and live in the shelter of solitude, but 
without being able to disconnect my thoughts from the strug- 
gle going on. I follow at a distance all its events of happi- 


COMPENSATION. 


45 


ness or grief ; I join the feasts and the funerals , for how 
can he who looks on, and knows what passes, do other than 
take part ? Ignorance alone can keep us strangers to the 
life around us : selfishness itself will not suffice for that. 

These reflections I made to myself in my attic, in the in- 
tervals of the various “ household works” to which a bache- 
lor is forced when he has no other servant than his own rea- 
dy will. Whilst I was pursuing my deductions, I had blacked 
my boots, brushed my coat, and tied my cravat : I had at 
last arrived at the important moment when we pronounce 
complacently that all is finished, and that well. 

A grand resolve had just decided me to depart from my 
usual habits : the evening before, I had seen by the adver- 
tisements, that the next day was a holiday at Sevres, and 
that the china manufactory would be open to the public. I 
was tempted by the beauty of the morning, and suddenly de- 
cided to go there. 

On my arrival at the station on the left bank, I noticed 
the crowd hurrying on in the fear of being late. Railroads, 
besides many other advantages, will have that of teaching the 
French punctuality. They will submit to the clock when 
they are convinced that it is their master : they will learn to 
wait, when they find they will not be waited for. Social vir- 
tues are, in a great degree, good habits. How many great 
qualities are grafted into notions by their geographical posi- 
tion, by political necessity, and by institutions ! Avarice 
was destroyed for a time among the Lacedemonians by the 
creation of a copper coinage, too heavy and too bulky to, be 
conveniently hoarded. 

I found myself in a carriage with two middle-aged sis- 
ters belonging to the domestic and retired class of Parisians 
I have spoken of above. A few civilities were sufficient to 
gain me their confidence, and after some minutes I was ac 
quainted with their whole history. 

They were two poor women, left orphans at fifteen, and 


46 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


had lived ever since as those who work for their livelihood 
must live, hy economy and privation. For the last twenty 
or thirty years they had worked in jewellery in the same 
house ; they had seen ten masters succeed one another, and 
make their fortunes in it, without any change in their own 
lot. They had always lived in the same room, at the end of 
one of the passages in the Rue St. Denis, where the air and the 
sun are unknown. They began their work before daylight, 
went on with it till after nightfall, and saw year succeed to 
year without their lives being 'marked by any other events 
than the Sunday service, a walk, or an illness. 

The younger of these worthy workwomen was forty, and 
obeyed her sister, as she did when a child. The elder looked 
after her, took care of her, and scolded her with a mother’s 
tenderness. At first it was amusing ; afterwards one could 
not help seeing something affecting in these two grey-haired 
children, one unable to leave off the habit of obeying, the 
other that of protecting. 

And it was not in that alone that my two companions 
seemed younger than their years ; they knew so little that 
their wonder never ceased. We had hardly arrived at Cla- 
mart, before they involuntarily exclaimed, like the king in 
the children’s game, that they did not think the world was 
so great ! 

It was the first time they had trusted themselves on a 
railroad, and it was amusing to see their sudden shocks, their 
alarms, and their courageous determinations : every thing 
was a marvel to them ! They had a remains of youth with- 
in them, which made them sensible to things which usually 
only strike us in childhood. Poor creatures ! they had still 
the feelings of another age, though they had lost its charms. 

But was there not something holy in this simplicity, 
which had been preserved to them by abstinence from all the 
joys of life ? Ah ! accursed be lie who first had the bad 
courage to attach ridicule to that name of Old Maid, which 


COMPENSATION. 


47 


recalls so many images of grievous deception, of dreariness, 
and of abandonment ! accursed be he who can find a subject 
for sarcasm in involuntary misfortune, and who can crown 
grey hairs with thorns ! 

The two sisters were called Frances and Madeleine ; this 
day’s journey was a feat of courage without example in their 
lives. The fever of the times had infected them unawares. 
Yesterday, Madeleine had suddenly proposed the idea of the 
expedition, and Frances had accepted it immediately. Per- 
haps it would have been better not to have yielded to the 
temptation offered by her young sister ; but “ we have our 
follies at all ages,” as the prudent Frances philosophically 
remarked. As for Madeleine, there are no regrets or doubts 
for her ; she is the life-guardsman of the establishment. 

“ We really must amuse ourselves,” said she; “we do 
but live once.” 

And the elder sister smiled at this Epicurean maxim. 
It was evident that the fever of independence was at its cri- 
sis in both of them. 

And in truth it would have been a great pity if any scru- 
ple had interfered with their happiness, it was so frank and 
genial ! The sight of the trees, which seemed to fly on 
both sides of the road, caused them unceasing admiration. 
The meeting a train passing in the contrary direction with 
the noise and rapidity of a thunderbolt, made them shut their 
eyes and utter a cry ; but it had already disappeared ! They 
look round, take courage again, and express themselves full 
of astonishment at the marvel. 

Madeleine declares that such a sight is worth the expense 
of the journey, and Frances would have agreed with her, if 
she had not recollected, with some little alarm, the deficit 
which such an expense must make in their budget. The 
three francs spent upon this single expedition, were the saw 
ings of a whole week of work. Thus the joy of the elder of 
the two sisters was mixed with remorse ; the prodigal child 


48 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


now and then turned back its eyes towards the back street 
of St. Denis. 

But the motion and the succession of objects distract her; 
see the Bridge of the Yal surrounded by its lovely land- 
scape : on the right, Paris with its grand monuments, which 
rise through the fog, or sparkle in the sun; on the left, 
Meudon, with its villas, its woods, its vines, and its royal 
castle ! The two workmen look from one window to the oth- 
er with exclamations of delight. One fellow-passenger 
laughs at their childish wonder ; but to myself it is very 
touching, for I see in it the sign of a long and monotonous 
seclusion : they are the prisoners of work, who have recover- 
ed liberty and fresh air for a few hours. 

At last the train stops, and we get out. I show the two 
sisters the path that leads to Sevres, between the railway 
and the gardens, and they go on before, while I inquire 
about the time of returning. 

I soon join them again at the next station, where they 
have stopped at the little garden belonging to the gate- 
keeper; both are already in deep conversation with him 
while he digs his garden borders, and marks out the places 
for flower-seeds. He informs them that it is the time for 
hoeing out weeds, for making grafts and layers, for sowing 
annuals, and for destroying the insects on the rose-trees. 
Madeleine has on the sill of her window two wooden boxes, 
in which, for want of air and sun, she has never been able to 
make any thing grow but mustard and cress ; but she per- 
suades herself, that, thanks to this information, all other 
plants may henceforth thrive in them. At last the gate- 
keeper, who is sowing a border with mignonette, gives her 
the rest of the seeds which he does not want, and the old 
maid goes off delighted, and begins to act over again the 
dream of Perette and her can of milk, with these flowers of 
her imagination. 

On reaching the grove of acacias, where the fair was 


COMPENSATION. 


49 


going on, I lost sight of the two sisters. I went alone 
among the sights ; there were lotteries going on, mounte- 
bank shows, places for eating and drinking, and for shooting 
with the crossbow. I have always been struck by the spirit 
of these out-of-door festivities. In drawing-room entertain- 
ments, people are cold, grave, often listless, and most of 
those who go there, are brought together by habit or the ob- 
ligations of society ; in the country assemblies, on the con- 
trary, you only find those who are attracted by the hope of 
enjoyment. There, it is a forced conscription : here, they 
are volunteers for gaiety ! Then, how easily they are 
pleased ! How far this crowd of people is yet from know- 
ing, that to be pleased^with nothing, and to look down on 
every thing, is the height of fashion and good taste ! 
Doubtless their amusements are often coarse ; elegance and 
refinement are wanting in them; but at least they have 
heartiness. Oh, that the hearty enjoyments of these merry- 
makings could be retained in union with less vulgar feeling. 
Formerly religion stamped its holy character on the celebra- 
tion of country festivals, and purified the pleasures without 
depriving them of their simplicity. 

The hour arrives at which the doors of the porcelain 
manufactory, and the museum of pottery, are open to the 
public ; I meet Frances and Madeleine again in the first 
room. Frightened at finding themselves in the midst of 
such regal magnificence, they hardly dare walk ; they speak 
in a low tone, as if they were in a church. 

“We are in the king’s house,” said the eldest sister, 
forgetting that there is no longer a king in France. 

I encourage them to go on ; I walk first, and they make 
up their minds to follow me. 

What wonders are brought together in this collection ! 
Here we see clay moulded into every shape, tinted with 
every colour, and combined with every sort of substance ! • 

Earth and wood are the first substances worked upon by 
3 


50 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


man, and seem more particularly meant for his use. They 
like the domestic animals, are the essential accessories of 
his life ; therefore there must he a more intimate connec- 
tion between them and us. Stone and metals require long 
preparations ; they resist our first efforts, and belong less to 
the individual than to communities. Earth and wood are, 
on the contrary, the principal instruments of the isolated 
being who must feed and shelter himself. 

This, doubtless, makes me feel so much interested in the 
collection I am examining. These cups so roughly model- 
led by the savage, admit me to a knowledge of some of his 
habits ; these elegant yet incorrectly formed vases of the 
Indian tell me of a declining intelligence, in which still 
glimmers the twilight of what was once bright sunshine; 
these jars, loaded with arabesques, show the fancy of the 
Arab rudely and ignorantly copied by the Spaniard ! We 
find here thes tamp of every race, every country, and every 
age. 

My companions seemed little interested in these historical 
associations : they looked at all with that credulous admira- 
tion which leaves no room for examination or discussion. 
Madeleine read the name written under every piece of work- 
manship, and her sister answered with an exclamation of 
wonder. 

In this way we reached a little court-yard, where they 
had thrown away the fragments of some broken china. 
Frances perceived a coloured saucer almost whole, of which 
she took possession, as a record of the visit she was making ; 
henceforth she would have a specimen of the Sevres china, 
which is only made for kings ! I would not undeceive Her, 
by telling her that the products of the manufactory are sold 
all over the world, and that her saucer, before it was cracked, 
was the same as those that are bought at the shops for six- 
pence ! Why should I destroy the illusions of her humble 
existence ? Are we to break down the hedge-flowers which 


COMPENSATION. 


51 


perfume our paths? Things are oftencst nothing in them- 
selves ; the thoughts we attach to them alone give them value. 
To rectify innocent mistakes, in order to recover some use- 
less reality, is to he like those learned men who will see 
nothing in a plant hut the chemical elements of which it is 
composed. 

On leaving the manufactory, the two sisters, who had 
taken possession of me with the freedom of artlessness, in- 
vited me to share the luncheon they had brought with them. 
I declined at first, hut they insisted with so much good- 
nature, that I feared to pain them, and with some awkward 
ness I gave way. 

We had only to look for a convenient spot. I led them 
up the hill, and we found a plot of grass enamelled with 
daisies, and shaded hy two walnut-trees. 

Madeleine could not contain herself for joy. All her life 
she had dreamt of a dinner out on the grass ! While help- 
ing her sister to take the provisions from the basket, she 
tells me of all her expeditions into the country that had been 
planned, and put off. Frances, on the other hand, was 
brought up at Montmorency, and before she became an 
orphan, she had often gone back to her nurse’s house. That 
which had the attraction of novelty for her sister, had for 
her the charm of recollection. She told the vintage harvests 
to which her parents had taken her ; the rides on Mother 
Luret’s donkey, that they could not make go to the right 
without pulling him to the left ; the cherry gathering ; and 
the sails on the lake in the boat of the innkeeper. 

These recollections have all the charm and freshness of 
childhood. Frances recalls to herself less what she has seen 
than what she has felt. Whilst she is talking the cloth is 
laid, and we sit down under a tree. Before us winds the 
valley of Sevres, its many-storied houses abutting upon the 
gardens and the slopes of the hill : on the other side spreads 
out tho*. park of St. Cloud, with its magnificent clumps of 


52 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


trees interspersed with meadows : above, stretch the heavens 
like an immense ocean, in which the clouds are sailing ! 1 

look at this beautiful country, and I listen to these good old 
maids; I admire, and I am interested; and time passes 
gently on without my perceiving it. 

At lest the sun sets, and we have to think of returning. 
Whilst Madeleine and Frances clear away the dinner, I walk 
down to the manufactory to ask the hour, The merry-mak- 
ing is at its height; the blasts of the trombones resound 
from the band under the acacias ; for a few moments I for- 
get myself with looking about; but I have promised the two 
sisters to take them back to the Bellevue Station : the train 
cannot wait, and I make haste to climb the path again which 
leads to the walnut trees. 

Just before I reached them, I heard voices on the other 
side of the hedge ; Madeleine and Frances were speaking to 
a poor girl whose clothes were burnt, her hands blackened, 
and her face tied up with blood-stained bandages. I saw 
that she was one of the girls employed at the gunpowder 
mills, which are built higher up on the common. An explo- 
sion had taken place a few days before; the girl’s mother and 
elder sister were killed ; she herself escaped by a miracle, 
and was now left without any means of support. She told 
all this with the resigned and unhopeful manner of one who 
has always been accustomed to suffer. The two sisters were 
much affected ; I saw them consulting with one another in 
a low tone ; then Frances took thirty sous out of a little 
coarse silk purse, which was all they had left, and gave them 
to the poor girl. I hastened on to that side of the hedge ; 
but, before I reached it, I met the two old sisters, who called 
out to me that they would not return by the railway, but on 
foot ! 

I then understood that the money they had meant for 
the journey, had just been given to the beggar ! Good, liko 
evil, is contagious ; I run to the poor wounded girl, give her 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


53 


the sum that was to pay for my own place, and return to 
Frances and Madeleine, and tell them I will walk with them. 

####### 

I am just come back from taking them home ; and have 
left them delighted with their day, the recollection of which 
will long make them happy ! 

This morning I was pitying those whose lives are obscure 
and joyless; now, I understand that God has provided a 
compensation with every trial. The smallest pleasure de- 
rives from rarity a relish otherwise unknown. Enjoyment 
is only what we feel to be such, and the luxurious man 
feels no longer ; satiety has lost him his appetite, while pri- 
vation preserves to the other that first of earthly blessings — 
the being easily made happy. Oh ! that I could persuade 
every one of this ! that so the rich might not abuse their 
riches, and that the poor might have patience. If happiness 
is the rarest of blessings, it is because the reception of it is 
the rarest of virtues. 

Madeleine and Frances ! Ye poor old maids ! whose 
courage, resignation, and generous hearts are your only 
wealth, pray for the wretched who give themselves up to 
despair ; for the unhappy who hate and envy ; and for the 
unfeeling into whose enjoyments no pity enters ! 


CHAP TEE YI. 

UNCLE MAURICE. 

June 1th , Four o'clock , a. m. — I am not surprised at hear- 
ing, when I awake, the birds singing so joyfully outside 
my window ; it is only by living as they and I do, in a top 
story, that one comes to know how cheerful the mornings 
really are up among the roofs. It is there that the sun sends 


54 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


his first rays, and the breeze comes with the fragrance of the 
gardens and woods ; there that a wandering butterfly some- 
times ventures among the flowers of the attic, and that the 
songs of the industrious workwoman welcome the dawn of 
day. The lower stories are still deep in sleep, silence, and 
shadow, while here labour, light, and song already reign. 

"What life is around me ! see the swallow returning from 
her search for food, with her beak full of insects for her 
young ones ; the sparrows shake the dew from their wings 
while they chase one another in the sunshine ; and my neigh- 
bours throw open their windows, and welcome the morning 
with their fresh faces ! Delightful hour of waking, when 
every thing returns to feeling and to motion ; when the first 
light of day strikes upon creation, and brings it to life again, 
as the magic wand struck the palace of the Sleeping Beauty 
in the wood ! It is a moment of rest from every misery ; the 
sufferings of the sick are allayed, and a breath of hope enters 
into the hearts of the despairing. But, alas ! it is but a short 
respite ! Every thing will soon resume its wonted course : 
the great human machine, with its long strains, its deep 
gasps, its collisions, and its crashes, will be again put in 
motion. 

The tranquillity of this first morning hour reminds me 
of that of our first years of life. Then, too, the sun shines 
brightly, the air is fragrant, and the illusions of youth — 
those birds of our life’s morning — sing around us. Why 
do they fly away when we are older ? Where do this sad- 
ness and this solitude, which gradually steal upon us, come 
from ? The course seems to be the same with individuals 
and with communities ; at starting, so readily made happy, 
so easily enchanted, and at the goal the bitter disappoint' 
ment of reality ! The road' which began among hawthorns 
and primroses, ends speedily in deserts or in precipices ! 
Why is there so much confidence at first, so much doubt at 
la »t ? Has, then, the knowledge of life no other end but t® 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


55 


make it unfit for happiness ? Must we condemn ourselves 
to ignorance if we would preserve hope ? Is the world and 
is the individual man intended, after all, to find rest only 
in an eternal childhood ? 

How many times have I asked myself these questions ! 
Solitude has the advantage or the danger of making us con- 
tinually search more deeply into the same ideas. As our 
discourse is only with ourself, we always give the same di- 
rection to the conversation ; we are not called to turn it to 
the subject which occupies another mind, or interests an- 
other’s feelings ; and so an involuntary inclination makes us 
return for ever to knock at the same doors ! 

I interrupted my reflections to put my attic in order. I 
hate the look of disorder, because it shows either a contempt 
fpr details, or an unaptness for spiritual life. To arrange 
the things among which we have to 'live, is to establish the 
relation of property and of use between them and us : it is 
to lay the foundation of those habits, without which man 
tends to the savage state. What, in fact, is social organi- 
zation but' a series of habits, settled in accordance with the 
dispositions of our nature ? 

I distrust both the intellect and the morality of those 
people to whom disorder is of no consequence — who can live 
' at ease in an Augean stable. What surrounds us, reflects 
more or less that which is within us. The mind is like one 
of those dark lanterns which, in spite of every thing, still 
throws some light around. If our tastes did not reveal pur 
character, they would be no longer tastes, but instincts. 

While I was arranging every thing in my -attic, my eyes 
rested on the little almanac hanging over my chimneypiece. 
I looked for the day of the month, and I saw these words 
written in large letters : 11 Fete Dieu ! ” 

It is to-day ! In this great city, where there are no longer 
any public religious solemnities, there is nothing to remind 
us of it; but it is, in truth, the period so happily chosen by 


56 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


the primitive church. i: The day kept in honour of the Crea 
tor,” says Chateaubriand, “ happens at a time when the 
heaven and the earth declare His power, when the woods and 
fields are full of new life, and all are united by the happiest 
ties; there is not a single widowed plant in the fields.” 

What recollections these words have just awakened ! I 
left off what I was about, I leant my elbows on the window 
sill, and with my head between my two hands, X went back, 
in thought, to the little town where the first days of my 
childhood were passed. 

The Fete Dieu was then one of the great events of my 
life ! It was necessary to be diligent and obedient a long 
time beforehand, to deserve to share in it. I still recollect 
with what raptures of expectation I got up on the morning 
of the day. There was a holy joy in the air. The neigh- 
bours, up earlier than usual, hung cloths with flowers or fig- 
ures, worked in tapestry, along the streets. I went from one 
to another, by turns admiring religious scenes of the middle 
ages, mythological compositions of the Renaissance, old bat- 
tles in the style of Louis XIV., and the Arcadias oT Madame 
de Pompadour. All this world of phantoms seemed to be 
coming forth from the dust of past ages, to assist — silent and 
motionless — at the holy ceremony. I looked alternately in 
fear and wonder, at those terrible warriors with their swords 
always raised, those beautiful huntresses shooting the arrow 
which never left the bow, and those shepherds in satin 
breeches always playing the flute at the feet of the perpe- 
tually smiling shepherdess. Sometimes, when the wind 
blew behind these hanging pictures, it seemed to me that the 
figures themselves moved, and I watched to see them detach 
themselves from the wall, and take their places in the pro- 
cession ! But these impressions were vague and transitory. 
The feeling that predominated over every other was that of 
an overflowing, yet quiet joy. In the midst of all the floating 
draperies, the scattered flowers, the voices of the maidens, 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


51 


and the gladness which, like a perfume, exhaled from every 
thing, you felt, transported in spite of yourself. The joyful 
sounds of the festival were repeated in your heart, in a thou- 
sand melodious echoes. You were more indulgent, more holy, 
more loving! For God was not only manifesting himself 
without, hut also within us. 

And then the altars for the occasion ! the flowery ar- 
bours ! the triumphal arches made of green boughs ! What 
competition among the different parishes for the erection ot 
the resting-places * where the procession was to halt ! It 
was who should contribute the rarest and the most beautiful 
of his possessions ! 

It was there I made my first sacrifice ! 

The wreaths of flowers were arranged, the candles light- 
ed, and the Tabernacle f dressed with roses ; but one was 
wanting fit to crown the whole ! All the neighbouring gar- 
dens had been ransacked. I alone possessed a flower worthy 
of such a place. It was on the rose-tree given me by my 
mother on my birth-day. I had watched it for several months, 
and there was no other bud to blow on the tree. There it 
was, half open, in its mossy nest, the object of such long ex- 
pectations, and of all a child’s pride ! I hesitated for some 
moments : no one had asked me for it ; I might easily avoid 
losing it. I should hear no reproaches ; but one rose noise- 
lessly within me. When every one else had given all they 
had, ought I alone to keep back my treasure ? Ought I to 
grudge to God one of the gifts which, like all the rest, I had 
received from Him ? At this last thought, I plucked the 
flower from the stem, and took it to put at the top of the 
Tabernacle. Ah ! why does the recollection of this sacrifice, 
which was so hard and yet so sweet to me, now make me 

* The Reposoirs , or temporary altars, on which the consecrated 
elements are placed while the procession halts. 

f An ornamental case, or cabinet, which contains the bread and 
wine. 


3 


58 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


smile ? Is it so certain that the value of a gift is in itself, 
rather than in the intention ? If the cup of cold water in the 
gospel is remembered to the poor man, why should not the 
flower be remembered to the child ? Let us not look down 
upon the child’s simple acts of generosity ; it is these which 
accustom the soul to self-denial and to sympathy. I cher- 
ished this moss-rose a long time as a sacred talisman ; I had 
reason to cherish it always, as the record of the first victory 
won over myself. 

It is now many years since I witnessed the celebration of 
the Fete Dieu ; but should I again feel in it the happy sen- 
sations of former days ? I still remember how, when the 
procession had passed, I walked through the streets strewed 
with flowers, and shaded with green boughs. I felt intoxi- 
cated by the lingering perfumes of the incense, mixed with 
the fragrance of seringas, jessamine, and roses, and I seemed 
no longer to touch the ground as I went along. I smiled at 
every thing ; the whole world was Paradise in my eyes, and 
it seemed to me that God was floating in the air ! 

Moreover, this feeling was not the excitement of the mo- 
ment : it might be more intense on certain days, but at the 
same time it continued through the ordinary course of my 
life. Many years thus passed for me in an expansion of 
heart, and a trustfulness which prevented sorrow, if not from 
coming at least from staying with me. Sure of not being 
alone , I soon took heart again, like the child who recovers 
its courage, because it hears its mother’s voice close by. 
Why have I lost that confidence of my childhood ? Shall I 
never feel again so deeply that God is here ? 

How strange the association of our thoughts ! A day of 
the month recalls my infancy, and see, all the recollections of 
my former years are growing up around me ! Why was I 
so happy then ! I consider well, and nothing is sensibly 
changed in my condition. I possess, as I did then, health, 
und my daily bread ; the only difference is, that I am now 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


59 


responsible for myself! As a child, I accepted life when it 
came ; another cared for, and provided for me. As long as 
I fulfilled my present duties I was at peace within, and I 
left the future to the prudence of my father ! My destiny 
was a ship, in the direction of which I had no share, and in 
which I sailed as a common passenger. There was the whole 
secret of childhood’s happy security. Since then, worldly 
wisdom has deprived me of it. When my lot was entrusted 
to my own and sole keeping, I thought to make myself mas- 
ter cf it by means of a long insight into the future. I have 
filled the present hour with anxieties, by occupying my 
thoughts with the future ; I have put my judgment in the 
place of Providence, and the happy child is changed into the 
anxious man ! 

A melancholy course, yet perhaps an important lesson. 
Who knows that, if I had trusted more to Him who rules the 
world, I should not have been spared all this anxiety ? It 
may be that happiness is not possible here below, but on the 
condition of living like the child, giving ourselves up to the 
duties of each day as it comes, and trusting in the goodness 
of our heavenly Father for all beside. 

This reminds me of my uncle Maurice ! Whenever I 
have need to strengthen myself in all that is good, I turn my 
thoughts to him ; I see again the gentle expression of his 
half-smiling, half-mournful face ; I hear his voice, always soft 
and soothing as a breath of summer ! The remembrance of 
him protects my life, and gives it light. He, too, was a saint 
and martyr here below ; others have pointed out the path of 
heaven ; he has taught us to see those of earth aright. 

But except the angels, who are charged with noting down 
the sacrifices performed in secret, and the virtues which are 
never known, who has ever heard speak of my uncle Mau- 
rice ? Perhaps I alone remember his name, and still recollect 
his history. 

Well! I will write it, not for others but for myself 1 


CO 


AN ATTtC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


They say that, at the sight of the Apollo, the body erectfc 
itself and assumes a more dignified attitude : in the same 
way, the soul should feel itself raised and ennobled by tho 
recollection of a good man’s life ! 

A ray of the rising sun lights up the little table on which 
I write ; the breeze brings me in the scent of the mignonette, 
and the swallows wheel about my window with joyful twit- 
terings. The image of my uncle Maurice will be in its pro- 
per place amidst the songs, the sunshine, and the fragrance. 

Seven o'clock . — It is with men’s lives as with days : some 
dawn radiant with a thousand colours, others dark with 
gloomy clouds. That of my uncle Maurice was one of the 
latter. He was so sickly when he came into the world, that 
they thought he must die ; but notwithstanding these antici- 
pations, which might be called hopes, he continued to live, 
suffering and deformed. 

He was deprived of all the joys as well as of all the at- 
tractions of childhood. He was oppressed because he was 
weak, and laughed at for his deformity. In vain the little 
hunchback opened his arms to the world ; the world scoffed 
at him, and went its way. 

However, he still had his mother, and it was to her that 
the child directed all the feelings of a heart repulsed by 
others. With her he found shelter, and was happy, till he 
reached the age when a man must take his place in life ; and 
Maurice had to content himself with that which others had 
refused with contempt. His education would have qualified 
him for any course of life ; and he became an Octroi*-clerk 
in one of the little toll-houses at the entrance of his native 
town. 

He was always shut up in this dwelling of a few feet 
square, with no relaxation from the office accounts but reading, 

* Tlie Octroi is the tax on provisions levied at the entrance of the 
towns. 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


01 


and his mother’s visits. On fine summer days she came to 
work at the door of his hut, under the shade of a clematis 
planted by Maurice. And even then when she was silent, 
her presence was a pleasant change for the hunchback ; he 
heard the clinking of her long knitting peedles, he saw 
her mild and mournful profile, which reminded him of so 
many courageously-borne trials ; he could every now and then 
rest his hand affectionately on that bowed down neck, and 
exchange a smile with her ! 

This comfort was soon to be taken from him. His old 
mother fell sick, and at the end of a few days he had to give 
up all hope. Maurice was overcome at the idea of a separa- 
tion which would henceforth leave him alone on earth, and 
abandoned himself to boundless grief. He knelt by the bed- 
side of the dying woman, he called her by the fondest names, 
he pressed her in his arms, as if he could so keep her in life. 
His mother tried to return his caresses, and to answer him ; 
but her hands were cold, her voice already gone. She could 
only press her lips against the forehead of her son, heave a 
sigh, and close her eyes for ever ! 

They tried to take Maurice away, but he resisted them 
and threw himself on that now motionless form. 

“ Dead ! ” cried he ; “ dead ! She who had never left me, 
she who was the only one in the world who loved me ! You, 
my mother, dead ! What then remains for me here below ? ” 

A stifled voice replied — 

“ God ! ” 

Maurice, startled, raised himself up ! Was it a last sigh 
from the dead, or his own conscience, that had answered 
him ? He did not seek to know, but he understood the 
answer, and accepted it. 

It was then that I first knew him. I often went to see 
him in his little toll-house ; he mixed in my childish games, 
told me his finest stories, and let me gather his flowers. 
Deprived as he was of all external attractiveness, he showed 


62 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


himself full of kindness to all who came to him, and, though 
he never would put himself forward, he had a welcome for 
every one. Deserted, despised, he submitted to every thing 
with a gentle patience ; and while he was thus stretched on 
the cross of life,, amid the insults of his executioners, he re- 
peated with Christ — “ Father, forgive them, for they know 
not what they do.” 

No other clerk showed so much honesty, zeal, and intel- 
ligence ; but those who otherwise might have promoted him 
as his services deserved, were repulsed by his deformity. 
As he had no patrons he found his claims were always dis- 
regarded. They preferred before him those who were better 
able to make themselves agreeable, and seemed to be grant- 
ing him a favour when letting him keep the humble office 
which enabled him to live. Uncle Maurice bore injustice as 
he had borne contempt ; unfairly treated by men, he raised 
his eyes higher, and trusted in the justice of Him who cannot 
be deceived. 

He lived in an old house in the suburb, where many 
workpeople, as poor but not as forlorn as he, also lodged. 
Among these neighbours there was a single woman, who 
lived by herself in a little garret, into which came both 
wind and rain. She was a young girl, pale, silent, and with 
nothing to recommend her but her wretchedness, and her 
resignation to it. She was never seen speaking to any other 
woman, and no song cheered her garret. She worked with- 
out interest and without relaxation ; a depressing gloom 
seemed to envelop her like a shroud. Her dejection affect- 
ed Maurice ; he attempted to speak to her : she replied 
mildly, but in few words. It was easy to see that she pre- 
ferred her silence and her solitude to the little hunchback’s 
good-will ; he perceived it, and said no more. 

Hut Toinette’s needle was hardly sufficient for her sup- 
port, and presently work failed her ! Maurice learned that 
the poor girl was in want of every thing, and that the trades 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


G3 


men refused to give her credit. He immediately went to 

them, and privately engaged to pay them for what they sup- 
plied Toinette with. 

Things went on in this way for several months. The 
young dressmaker continued out of work, until she was at 
last frightened at the hills she had contracted with the shop- 
keepers. When she came to an explanation with them, 
every thing was discovered. Her first impulse was to run to 
uncle Maurice, and thank him on ner knees. Her habitual 
reserve had given way to a burst • of deepest feeling. It 
seemed as if gratitude had melted all the ice of that numbed 
heart. 

Being now no longer embarrassed with a secret, the 
little hunchback could give greater efficacy to his good offices. 
Toinette became to him a sister, for whose wants he had a 
right to provide. It was the first time since the death of his 
mother that he had been able to share his life with another. 
The young woman received his attentions with feeling, — but 
with reserve. All Maurice’s efforts were insufficient to dis- 
pel her gloom : she seemed touched by his kindness, and 
sometimes expressed her sense of it with warmth ; but there 
she stopped. Her heart was a closed book, which the little 
hunchback might bend over, but could not read. In truth 
he cared little to do so : he gave himself up to the happi- 
ness of being no longer alone, and took Toinette such as 
her long trials had made her : he loved her as she was, 
and wished for nothing else but still to enjoy her com- 
pany. 

This thought insensibly took possession of his mind, to 
the exclusion of all besides. The poor girl was as forlorn as 
himself ; she had become accustomed to the deformity of the 
hunchback, and she seemed to look on him with an affec- 
tionate sympathy ! What more could he wish for ? Until 

then, the hopes of making himself acceptable to a helpmate 
had been repelled by Maurice as a dream ; but chance seem- 


64 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


ed willing to make it a reality. After mucli hesitation, he 
took courage, and decided to speak to her. 

It was evening ; the little hunchback, in much agitation, 
directed his steps towards the workwoman’s garret. Just 
as he was about to enter, he thought he heard a strange 
voice pronouncing the maiden’s name. He quickly pushed 
open the door, and perceived Toinette weeping, and lean- 
ing on the shoulder of a young man in the dress of a 
sailor. 

At the sight of my uncle, she disengaged herself quickly, 
and ran to him, crying out — 

“ Ah ! come in — come in ! It is he that I thought was 
dead : it is Julien ; it is my betrothed ! ” 

Maurice tottered, and drew back. A single word had 
told him all ! 

It seemed to him as if the ground shook and his heart 
was going to break ; but the same voice that' he had heard 
by his mother’s death-bed again sounded in his ears, and he 
soon recovered himself. God was still his friend ! 

He himself accompanied the newly-married pair on the 
road when they went away, and, after having wished them 
all the happiness which was denied to him, he returned with 
resignation to the old house in the suburb. 

It was there that he ended his life, forsaken by men, but 
not, as he said, by the Father which is in heaven. He felt 
His presence every where ; it was to him in the place of all 
else. When he died, it was with a smile, and like an exile 
setting out for his own country. He who had consoled him 
in poverty and ill health, when he was suffering from injus- 
tice and forsaken by all, had made death a gain and blessing 
to him. 

Fight o'clock . — All I have just written has pained me ! 
Till now I have looked into life for instruction how to live. 
Is it then true, that human maxims are not always sufficient ? 
that beyond goodness, prudence, moderation, humility, self 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


65 


sacrifice itself, there is one great truth, which alone can face 
great misfortunes ? and that, if man has need of virtues for 
others, he has need of religion for himself? 

When, in youth, we drink our wine with a merry heart, 
as the Scripture expresses it, we think we are sufficient for 
ourselves ; strong, happy, and beloved, we believe, like Ajax, 
we shall be able to escape every storm in spite of the gods ; 
but later in life, when the back is bowed, when happiness 
proves a fading flower, and the affections grow chill, — then, 
in fear of the void and the darkness, we stretch out our arms, 
like the child overtaken by night, and we call for help to 
Him who is every where . 

I was asking this morning why this growing confusion 
alike for society and for the individual ? In vain does human 
reason from hour to hour light some new torch on the road- 
side : the night continues to grow ever darker ! Is it not 
because we are content to withdraw further and further from 
God, the sun of spirits ? 

But what do these hermit’s reveries signify to the world ? 
The inward turmoils of most men are stifled by the outward 
ones ; life does not give them time to question themselves. 
Have they time to know what they are, and what they should 
be, whose whole thoughts are in the next lease, or the last 
price of stocks ? Heaven is very high, and wise men look 
only to the earth. 

But I — poor savage amid all this civilization — who seek 
neither power nor riches, and who have found in my own 
thoughts the home and shelter of my spirit, I can go back 
with impunity to these recollections of my childhood ; and 
if this our great city no longer honours the name of God 
with a festival, I will strive still to keep the feast to Him 
in my heart. 


66 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE PRICE OP POWER, AND THE WORTH OF FAME. 

Sunday, July ls£. — Yesterday tlie month dedicated tc 
Juno ( Junius , June) by the Romans, ended. To-day we 
enter on July. 

In ancient Rome this latter month was called Quintilis 
(the fifth), because the year, which was then only divided 
into ten parts, began in March. When Numa Pompilius 
divided it into twelve months, this name of Quintilis was 
preserved, as well as those that followed — Sextilis , Septem- 
ber. , October , November , December ; although these designa- 
tions did not accord with the newly arranged order of the 
months. At last, after a time, the month Quintilis , in 
which Julius Caesar was born, was called Julius , from 
whence we have July. 

Thus, this name, placed in the calendar, is become the 
imperishable record of a great man ; it is an immortal 
epitaph on Time’s highway, engraved by the admiration of 
man. 

How many similar inscriptions are there? — seas, con- 
tinents, mountains, stars, and monuments, have all in succes- 
sion served the same purpose ! We have turned the whole 
world into a Golden Rook, like that in which the state of 
Yenice used to enroll its illustrious names and its great 
deeds. It seems that mankind feel a necessity for honouring 
itself in its elect ones, and that it raises itself in its own 
eyes by choosing heroes from amongst its own race. The 
human family love to preserve the memory of the “ parvenus ” 
of glory, as we cherish that of a renowned ancestor, or of a 
benefactor. 

In fact, the talents granted to a single individual do not 
benefit himself alone, but are gifts to the world ; every one 


THE PRICE OF POWER, AND TIIE WORTH OF FAME. 67 

shares them, for every one suffers or benefits by his actions. 
Genius is a lighthouse, meant to give light from afar ; the 
man who bears it is but the rock upon which this lighthouse 
is built. 

I love to dwell upon these thoughts ; they explain to me 
in what consists our admiration for glory. When glory has 
benefited men, that admiration is gratitude : when it is only 
remarkable in' itself, it is the pride of race ; as men we love 
to immortalize the most shining examples of humanity. 

Who knows whether we do not obey the same instinct, in 
submitting to the hand of power ? Apart from the require- 
ments of a gradation of ranks, or the consequences of a 
conquest, the multitude delight to surround their chiefs with 
privileges ; whether it be that their vanity makes them thus 
to aggrandize one of their own creations, or whether they 
try to conceal the humiliation of subjection, by exaggerating 
the importance of those who rule them. They wish to honour 
themselves through their master ; they elevate him on their 
shoulders as on a pedestal ; they surround him with a halo 
of light, in order that some of it may be reflected upon 
themselves. It is still the fable of the dog who contents 
himself with the chain and collar, so that they are of gold. 

This servile vanity is not less natural or less common 
than the vanity of dominion. Whoever feels himself incapa- 
ble of command, at least desires to obey a powerful chief. 
Serfs have been known to consider themselves dishonoured 
when they became the property of a mere count after having 
been that of a prince, and St. Simon mentions a valet who 
would only wait upon marquises. 

July 1th , Seven o'clock p.m. — I have just now been up the 
Boulevards ; it was the Opera night, and there was a crowd 
of carriages in the ' Rue Lapelletier. The foot passengers 
who were stopped at a crossing, recognised the persons in 
some of these as they went by, and mentioned their names j 


68 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


they were those of celebrated or powerful men — the success- 
ful ones of the day. 

Near me there was a man looking on with hollow cheeks 
and eager eyes, and whose black coat was threadbare. He 
followed with envious looks these possessors of the privileges 
of power or of fame, and I read on his lips, which curled 
with a bitter smile, all that passed in his mind. 

“ Look at them, the lucky fellows ! ” thought he ; “ all 
the pleasures of wealth, all the enjoyments of pride, are 
theirs. Their names are renowned, all their wishes fulfilled; 
they are the sovereigns of the world either by their intellect 
or their power : and whilst I, poor and unknown, toil pain- 
fully along the road below, they wing their way over the 
mountain tops gilded by the broad sunshine of prosperity.” 

I have come home in deep thought. Is it true that there 
are these inequalities, I do not say in the fortunes, but in 
the happiness of men ? Do genius and authority really 
wear life as a crown, while the greater part of mankind 
receive it as a yoke ? Is the difference of rank but a dif- 
ferent use of men’s dispositions and talents, or a real in- 
equality in their destinies ? A solemn question, as it regards 
the verification of God’s impartiality. 

July 8th, Noon . — I went this morning to call upon a 
friend from the same province as myself, and who is first 
usher in waiting to one of our ministers. I took him some 
letters from his family, left for him by a traveller just come 
from Brittany. He wished me to stay. 

“ To-day,” said he, “ the minister gives no audience: he 
takes a day of rest with his family. His younger sisters 
are arrived : he will take them this morning to St. Cloud, 
and in the evening he has invited his friends to a private 
ball ; I shall be dismissed directly for the rest of the day. 
We can dine together; read the news while you are waiting 
for me.” 

I sat down at a table covered with newspapers, all of 


THE PRICE OF POWER, AND THE WORTH OF FAME. CD 

which I looked over by turns. Most of them contained 
severe criticisms on the last political acts of the minister ; 
some of them added suspicions as to the honour of the 
minister himself. 

Just as I had finished reading, a secretary came for them 
to take them to his master. 

He was then about to read these accusations, to suffer 
silently the abuse of all those tongues which were holding 
him up to indignation or to scorn ! Like the Roman victor 
in his triumph, he had to endure the insults of him who 
followed his car, relating to the crowd his follies, his igno- 
rance, or his vices. 

But, among the arrows shot at him from every side, 
would no one be found poisoned? Would not one reach 
some spot in his heart where the wound would be incurable ? 
What is the worth of a life exposed to the attacks of envious 
hatred or furious conviction ? The Christians yielded only 
the fragments of their flesh to the beasts of the amphithea- 
tres ; the man in power gives up his peace, his affections, his 
honour, to the cruel bites of the pen. 

While I was musing upon these dangers of greatness, the 
usher entered hastily. 

Important news has been received : the minister is just 
summoned to the council ; he will not be able to take his 
sisters to St. Cloud. 

I saw, through the windows, the young ladies, who were 
waiting at the door, sorrowfully go up-stairs again, whilst 
their brother went off to the council. The carriage, which 
should have gone filled with so much family happiness, is just 
out of sight, carrying only the cares of a statesman in it. 

The usher came back discontented and disappointed. 

The more or less of liberty which he is allowed to enjoy, 
is his barometer of the political atmosphere. If he gets 
leave, all goes well ; if he is kept at his post, the coun- 
try is in danger. His opinion on public affairs is but a 


70 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 

calculation of liis own interests. My friend is almost a 
statesman. 

I had some conversation with him, and he told me several 
curious particulars of public life. 

The new minister has old friends whose opinions he op- 
poses, though he still retains his personal regard for them. 
Though separated from them by the colours he fights under, 
they remain united by old associations ; but the exigencies of 
party forbid him to meet them. If their intercourse contin- ^ 
ued, it would awaken suspicion ; people would imagine that 
some dishonourable bargain was going on ; his friends would 
be held to be traitors desirous to sell themselves, and he the 
corrupt minister prepared to buy them : he has, therefore, 
been obliged to break off friendships of twenty years stand- 
ing, and to sacrifice attachments which had become a second 
nature. 

Sometimes, however, the minister still gives way to his 
old feelings ; he receives or visits his friends privately ; he 
shuts himself up with them, and talks of the times when they 
could be open friends. By dint of precautions they have 
hitherto succeeded in concealing this plot of friendship 
against policy ; but sooner or later the newspapers will be 
informed of it, and will denounce him to the country as an 
object of distrust. 

For, whether hatred be honest or dishonest, it never 
shrinks from any accusation. Sometimes it even proceeds 
to crime. The usher assured me, that several warnings had 
been given the minister which had made him fear the ven- 
geance of an assassin, and that he no longer ventured out on 
foot. 

Then, from one thing to another, I learned what tempta- 
tions came in to mislead or overcome his judgment ; how he 
found himself fatally led into obliquities which he could not 
but deplore. Misled by passion, over-persuaded by entreat- 
ies, or compelled for reputation’s sake, he has many times 


THE PRICE OF POWER, AND THE WORTH OF FAME. *71 

held the balance with an unsteady hand. How sad the con- 
dition of him who is in authority ! Not only are the miser- 
ies of power imposed upon him, but its vices also, which, not 
content with torturing, succeed in corrupting him. 

"We prolonged our conversation till it was interupted by 
the minister’s return. He threw himself out of the carriage 
with a handful of papers, and with an anxious manner went 
into his own room. An instant afterwards his bell was heard; 
. his secretary was called to send off notices to all those invited 
for the evening ; the ball would not take place ; they spoke 
mysteriously of bad news transmitted by the telegraph, and 
in such circumstances an entertainment would seem to insult 
the public sorrow. 

I took leave of my friend, and here I am at home. What 
I have just seen is an answer to my doubts the other day. 
Now I know with what pangs men pay for their dignities ; I 
now understand 

“ That Fortune sells what we believe she gives.” 

This explains to me why Charles V. aspired to the re- 
pose of the cloister. 

And yet I have only glanced at some of the sufferings at- 
tached to power. What shall I say of the falls in which its 
possessors are precipitated from the heights of heaven to the 
very depths of the earth ? of that path of pain, along 
which they must for ever bear the burden of their responsi- 
bility ? of that chain of decorums and ennuis which encom 
passes every act of their lives, and leaves them so little lib- 
erty ? 

The partisans of despotism adhere with reason to forms 
and ceremonies. If men wish to give unlimited power to 
their fellow man, they must keep him separated from ordi- 
nary humanity ; they must surround him with a continual 
worship, and, by a constant ceremonial, keep up for him the 
superhuman part they have granted him. Our masters can- 


12 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


not remain absolute, but on condition of being treated as 
idols. 

But after all, these idols are men, and if the exclusive 
life they must lead is an insult to the dignity of others, it is 
also a torment to themselves. Every one knows the law of 
the Spanish court, which used to regulate, hour by hour, the 
actions of the king and queen; “so that,” says Voltaire, 

“ by reading it one can tell all that the sovereigns of Spain 
have done, or will do, from Philip II. to the day of judg- 
ment.” It was by this law that Philip III., when sick was 
obliged to endure such an excess of heat that he died in con- 
sequence, because the Duke d’Uz^de, who alone had the right 
to put out the fire in the royal chamber, happened to be 
absent. 

When the wife of Charles II. was run away with on a spir ~ 
ited horse, she was about to perish before any one dared to 
save her, because etiquette forbade them to touch the queen ; 
two young officers endangered their lives for her by stopping 
the horse. The prayers and tears of her whom they had just 
snatched from death, were necessary to obtain pardon for 
their crime. Every one knows the anecdote related by 
Madame Campan of Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. 
One day, being at her toilet, when the shift was about to be 
presented to her by one of the assistants, a lady of very an- 
cient family entered and claimed the honour, as she had the 
right by etiquette ; but at the moment she was going to fulfil 
her duty, a lady of higher rank appeared, and in her turn 
took the garment she was about to offer to the queen ; when 
a third lady of still higher title came in her turn, and was 
followed by a fourth, who was no other than the king’s sister. 
The shift was in this manner passed from hand to hand, with 
ceremonies, curtsies and compliments, before it came to the 
queen, who, half naked and quite ashamed, was shivering with 
cold for the greater honour of etiquette. 

12 thy Seven o'* dock, p. m. — On coming home this even- 


THE PRICE OF POWER, AND THE WORTH OF FAME. 73 

ing, I saw, standing at the door of a house, an old man, 
whole appearance and features reminded me of my father. 
There was the same beautiful smile, the same deep and pen- 
etrating eye, the same noble bearing of the head, and the 
same careless attitude. 

I began living over again the first years of my life, and 
recalling to myself the conversations of that guide whom G-od 
in His mercy had given me, and whom in His severity He 
had too soon withdrawn. 

When my father spoke, it was not only to bring our two 
minds together, by an interchange of thought, but his words 
always contained instruction. 

Not that he endeavoured to make me feel it so : my father 
feared every thing that had the appearance of a lesson. He 
used to say that virtue could make herself devoted friends, 
but she did not take pupils : therefore he was not anxious to 
teach goodness ; he contented himself with sowing the seeds 
of it, certain that experience would make them grow. 

How often has good grain fallen thus into a corner of the 
heart, and when it has been long forgotten, all at once put 
forth the blade and come into ear. It is a treasure laid 
aside in a time of ignorance, and we do not know its value 
till the day we find ourselves in need of it. 

Among the stories with which h^ enlivened, our walks or 
our evenings, there is one which now returns to my memory, 
doubtless because the time is come to derive its lesson from it. 

My father, who was apprenticed at the age of twelve to 
one of those trading collectors who call themselves natural- 
ists , because they put all creation under glasses that they 
may sell it by retail, had always led a life of poverty and la- 
bour. Obliged to rise before daybreak, by turns shop-boy, 
clerk, and labourer, he was made to bear alone all the work 
of a trade, of which his master reaped all the profits. In 
truth, this latter had a peculiar talent for making the most 
of the labour of other people. Though unfit himself for the 
4 


74 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 

execution of any kind of work, no one knew better liow to 
sell it. His words were a net, in whick people found them 
selves taken before they were aware. And since lie was 
devoted to himself alone, and looked on the producer as his 
enemy, and the buyer as his prey, he used them both up with 
that obstinate perseverance which avarice teaches. 

My father was a slave all the week, and could only call 
himself his own on Sunday. The master naturalist, who 
used to spend the day at the house of an old female relation, 
then gave him his liberty on condition that he dined out, and 
at his own expense. But my father used secretly to take 
with him a crust of bread, which he hid in his botanizing box, 
and, leaving Paris as soon as it was day, he would wander far 
into the valley of Montmorency, the wood of Meudon, or 
among the windings of the Marne. Excited by the fresh air, 
the penetrating perfume of the growing vegetation, or the 
fragrance of the honeysuckles, he would walk on until hun- 
ger or fatigue made themselves felt. Then he would sit un- 
der a hedge, or by the side of a stream, and would make a 
rustic feast, by turns on watercresses, wood strawberries, and 
blackberries picked from the hedges ; he would gather a few 
plants, read a few pages of Florian, then in greatest vogue, 
of Gessner, who was just translated, or of Jean- Jacques, of 
whom he possessed three odd volumes. The day was thus 
passed alternately in activity and rest, in pursuit and medita- 
tion, until the declining sun warned him to take again the 
road to Paris, where he would arrive, his feet torn and dusty, 
but his mind invigorated for a whole week. 

One day, as he was going towards the wood of Viroflay, he 
met, close to it, a stranger who was occupied in botanizing, 
and in sorting the plants he had just gathered. He was an 
oldish man with an honest face ; but his eyes, which were 
rather deep set under his eyebrows, had a somewhat uneasy 
and timid expression. He was dressed in a brown cloth 
coat, a grey waistcoat, black breeches, worsted stockings, and 


THE PRICE OF POWER, AND THE WORTH OF FAME. *75 

held an ivory-headed cane under his arm. His appearance 
was that of a small retired tradesman who was living on his 
means, and rather below the golden mean of Horace. 

My father, who had great respect for age, civilly raised 
his hat to him as he passed ; but, in doing so, a plant he 
held fell from his hand ; the stranger stooped to take it up, 
and recognised it. 

u It is a Deutaria heptaphyllos ,” said he; “ I have not 
yet seen any of them in these woods ; did you find it near 
here, sir ?” 

My father replied, that it was to be found in abundance 
on the top of the hill, towards Sevres, as well as the great 
Laser pitium. 

“ That, too !” repeated the old man more briskly. “ Ah ! 
I shall go and look for them ; I have gathered them formerly 
on the hillside of Bobaila.” 

My father proposed to take him. The stranger accepted 
his proposal with thanks, and hastened to collect together 
the plants he had gathered ; but all of a sudden he appeared 
seized with a scruple. He observed to his companion, that 
the road he was going was halfway up the hill, and led in the 
direction of the castle of the Dames Royales at Bellevue ; 
that by going to the top he would consequently turn out of 
his road, and that it was not right he should take this trou- 
ble for a stranger. 

My father insisted upon it with his habitual good-nature ; 
but the more eagerness he showed, the more obstinately the 
old man refused ; it even seemed to my father that his good 
intention at last excited his suspicion. He therefore con- 
tented himself with pointing out the road to the stranger, 
whom he saluted, and he soon lost sight of him. 

Many hours passed by, and he thought no more of the 
meeting. He had reached the copses of Chaville, where, 
stretched on the ground in a mossy glade, he read once more 
the last volume of Emile. The delight of reading it had so 


76 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


completely absorbed him, that he*had ceased to see or heal 
any thing around him. With his cheeks flushed, and his 
eyes moist, he repeated aloud a passage which had particu 
larly affected him. 

An exclamation uttered close by him, awoke him from 
his ecstasy ; he raised his head, and perceived the tradesman- 
looking person he had met before on the cross-road at Viro- 
flay. 

He was loaded with plants, the collection of which seem- 
ed to have put him into high good-humour. 

“A thousand thanks, sir,” said he to my father. “I have 
found all that you told me of, and I am indebted to you for 
a charming walk.” My father respectfully got up, and made 
a civil reply. The stranger had grown quite familiar, and 
even asked if his young brother botanist did not think of re- 
turning to Paris. My father replied in the affirmative, and 
opened his tin box to put his book back in it. 

The stranger asked him with a smile, if ho might without 
impertinence ask the name of it. *My father answered that 
it was Rousseau’s “ Emile.” 

The stranger immediately became grave. 

They walked for some time side by side, my father ex- 
pressing, with the warmth of a heart still throbbing with 
emotion, all that this work had made him feel ; his companion 
remaining cold and silent. The former extolled the glory of 
the great Genevese writer, whose genius had made him a ci- 
tizen of the world ; he expatiated on this privilege of great 
thinkers, who reign in spite of time and space, and gather 
together a people of willing subjects out of all nations; but 
the stranger suddenly interrupted him : — 

“And how do you know,” said he'mildly, “whether Jean- 
Jacques would not exchange the reputation which you seem 
to envy, for the life of one of. the woodcutters whose chim- 
ney’s smoke we see ? What has fame brought him except 
persecution? The unknown friends whom his books may 


THE PRICE OF POWER, AND THE WORTH OF FAME. * 1*1 

have made for him, content themselves with blessing him in 
their hearts ; while the declared enemies that they have 
drawn upon him, pursue him with violence and calumny ! 
His pride has been flattered by success ! How many times 
has it been wounded by satire ! And be assured that human 
pride is like the Sybarite, who was prevented from sleeping 
by a crease in a rose leaf. The activity of a vigorous mind, 
by which the world profits, almost always turns against him 
who possesses it. He expects more from it as he grows old- 
er ; the ideal he pursues continually disgusts him with the 
actual ; he is like a man who, with a too refined sight, discerns 
spots and blemishes in the most beautiful face. I will not 
speak of stronger temptations and of deeper downfalls. Ge- 
nius, you have said, is a kingdom ; but what virtuous man is 
not afraid of being a king ? He who feels only his great 
powers, is — with the weaknesses and passions of our nature 
— preparing for great failures. Believe me, sir, the unhappy 
man who wrote this book, is no object of my admiration or 
of envy ; but, if you have a feeling heart, pity him 1” 

My father, astonished at the excitement with which his 
companion pronounced these last words, did not know what 
to answer. 

Just then they reached the paved road which led from 
Meudon castle to that of Versailles; a carriage was passing. 

The ladies who were in it perceived the old man, uttered 
an exclamation of surprise, and leaning out of the window, 
repeated — 

“ There is Jean- Jacques — there is Bousseau !” 

Then the carriage disappeared in the distance. 

My father remained motionless, confounded and amazed, 
his eyes wide open, and his hands clasped. 

Rousseau, who had shuddered on hearing his name spok- 
en, turned towards him : — 

“ You see,” said he, with the bitter misanthropy which 
his later misfortunes had produced in him, “ Jean- Jacques 


78 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


cannol even hide himself : he is an object of curiosity to 
some, of malignity to others, and to all he is a public thing, 
at which they point the finger. It would signify less if he 
had only to submit to the impertinence of the idle; hut, as 
soon as a man has had the misfortune to make himself a 
name, he becomes public property. Every one rakes into 
his life, relates his most trivial actions, and insults his feel- 
ings ; he becomes like those walls, which every passer-by may 
deface with some abusive writing. Perhaps you will say 
that I have myself encouraged this curiosity by publishing 
my Memoirs. But the world forced me to it. They looked 
into my house through the blinds, and they slandered me ; I 
have opened the doors and windows, so that they should at 
least know me such as I am. Adieu, sir : whenever you wish 
to know the worth of fame, remember that you have seen 
Bousseau.” ^ 

Nine o' 1 clock . — Ah ! now I understand my father’s story ! 
it contains the answer to one of the questions I asked my- 
self a week ago. Yes, I now feel that fame and power are 
gifts that are dearly bought ; and that, when they dazzle the 
soul, both of them are oftenest, as Madame de Stael says, 
but “ un deuil eclatant de bonheur ! ”* 

* [Tis better to be lowly born, 

And range with humble livers in content, 

Than to be perk’d up in a glistering grief, 

And wear a golden sorrow. 

Henry VIII., Act II., Scene 3.] 


MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. 


79 


CHAPTER VIII. 


MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. 

August 3rd, Nine o'clock , p. m. — There are days when 
every thing appears gloomy to ns ; the world is, like the 
sky, covered by a dark fog. Nothing seems in its place ; we 
only see misery, improvidence, and cruelty ; the world seems 
without G-od, and. given up to all the evils of chance. 

Yesterday I was in this unhappy humour. After a 
long walk in the faubourgs, I returned home, sad and dis- 
pirited. 

Every thing I had seen seemed to accuse the civilization 
of which we are so proud ! I had wandered into a little bye 
street, with which I was not acquainted, and I found myself 
suddenly in the middle of those dreadful abodes where the 
poor are born, languish, and die. I looked at those decay- 
ing walls, which time has covered with a foul leprosy ; those 
windows, from which dirty rags hang out to dry; those 
fetid gutters, which coil along the fronts of the houses like 
venomous 'reptiles ! — I felt oppressed with grief, and hast- 
ened on. 

A little further on, I was stopped by the hearse of an 
hospital ; a dead man, nailed down in his deal coffin, was 
going to his last abode, without funeral pomp or ceremony, 
and without followers. There was not here even that last 
friend of the outcast — the dog, which a painter has intro- 
duced as the sole attendant at the pauper’s burial ! He 
whom they were preparing to commit to the earth, was 
going to the tomb, as he had lived, alone ; doubtless no one 
would be aware of his end. In this great battle of society, 
what signifies a soldier the less ? 

But what, then, is this human society, if one of its 


80 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


members can thus disappear like a leaf carried away by the 
wind ? 

The hospital was near a barrack; at the entrance of 
which old men, women, and children, were quarrelling foi 
the remains of the coarse bread which the soldiers had 
given them in charity ! Thus, beings like ourselves daily? 
wait, in destitution, on our compassion till we give them 
leave to live ! Whole troops of outcasts, 'in addition to the 
trials imposed on all God’s children, have to endure the 
pangs of cold, hunger, and humiliation. Unhappy human 
commonwealth ! where man is in a worse condition than 
the bee in its hive, or the ant in its subterranean city ! 

Ah ! what then avails our reason ? What is the good 
of so many high faculties, if we are neither the wiser nor the 
happier for them ? Which of us would not exchange his 
life of labour and trouble with that of the birds of the air, 
to whom the whole world is a life of joy ? 

How well I understand the complaint of Mao, in the 
popular tales of the Foyer Breton , who, wh^n dying of hun- 
ger and thirst, says, as he looks at the bullfinches rifling the 
fruit-trees — 

“ Alas ! those birds are happier than Christians ; they 
have no need of inns, or butchers, or bakers, or gardeners. 
God’s heaven belongs to them, and earth spreads a contin- 
ual feast before them ! The tiny flies are their game, ripe 
grass their corn-fields, and hips and haws their store of fruit. 
They have the right of taking every where, without pay- 
ing or asking leave : thus comes it that the little birds are 
happy, and sing all the livelong day ! ” 

But the life of man in a natural state is like that of the 
birds ; he equally enjoys nature. u The earth spreads a 
continual feast before him.” What, then, has he gained by 
that selfish and imperfect association which forms a nation ? 
W ould it not be better for every one to return again to the 


MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. 


81 


fertile bosom of nature, and live there upon lier bounty in 
peace and liberty ? 

August 10 thy Four o'clock, a.m. — The dawn casts a red 
glow on my bed-curtains ; the breeze brings in the fragrance 
of the gardens below ; here I am again leaning on my el- 
bows by the window, inhaling the freshness and gladness of 
this first wakening of the day. 

My eye always passes over the roofs filled with flowers, 
warbling, and sunlight, with the same pleasure ; but to-day 
it stops at the end of a buttress which separates our house 
from the next. The storms have stripped the top of its 
plaster covering, and dust carried by the wind has collected 
in the crevices, and being fixed there by the rain, has 
formed a sort of aerial terrace, where some green grass 
has sprung up. Amongst it rises a stalk of wheat, which 
to-day is surmounted by a sickly ear that droops its yellow 
head. 

This poor stray crop 09 the roofs, the harvest of which 
will fall to the neighbouring sparrows, has carried my 
thoughts to the rich crops which are now falling beneath the 
sickle ; it has recalled to me the beautiful walks I took as a 
child through my native province, when the threshing-floors 
at the farm-houses resounded from every part with the sound 
of the flail, and when the carts, loaded with golden sheaves, 
came in by all the roads. I still remember the songs of the 
maidens, the cheerfulness of the old men, the open-hearted 
merriment of the labourers. There was, at that time, some- 
thing in their looks both of pride and feeling. The latter 
came from thankfulness to God, the former from the sight 
of the harvest, the reward of their labour. They felt indis- 
tinctly the grandeur and the holiness of their part in the 
general work of the world; they looked with pride upon 
their mountains of corn sheaves, and they seemed to say — - 
next to God, it is we who feed the world ! 

What a wonderful order there is in all human labour I 
4* 


82 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


Whilst the husbandman furrows his land, and prepares for 
every one his daily bread, the town artisan, far away, weaves 
the stuff in which he is to be clothed ; the miner seeks under 
ground the iron for his plough; the soldier defends him 
against the invader ; the judge takes care that the law pro- 
tects his fields ; the tax-comptroller adjusts his private inter- 
ests with those of the public ; the merchant occupies himself 
in exchanging his products with those of distant countries ; 
the men of science and of art add every day a few horses to 
this ideal team, which draws along the material world, as 
steam impels the gigantic trains of our iron roads ! Thus all 
unite together, all help one another ; the toil of each one 
benefits himself and all the world ; the work has been appor- 
tioned among the different members of the whole of society 
by a tacit agreement. If, in this apportionment, errors are 
committed — if certain individuals have not been employed ac- 
cording to their capacities, these defects of detail diminish in 
the sublime conception of the whole. The poorest man in- 
cluded in this association has his place, his work, his reason 
for being there ; each is something in the whole. 

There is nothing like this for man in the state of nature ; 
as he depends only upon himself, it is necessary that he be 
sufficient for every thing : — all creation is his property ; but 
he finds in it as many hindrances as helps. He must sur- 
mount these obstacles with the single strength that God has 
given him ; he cannot reckon on any other aid than chance 
and opportunity. No one reaps, manufactures, fights or 
thinks for him; he is nothing to any one. lie is a unit 
multiplied by the cipher of his own single powers ; while the 
civilized man is a unit multiplied by the powers of the whole 
of society. 

Yet, notwithstanding this, the other day, disgusted by 
the sight of some vices in detail, I cursed the latter, and 
almost envied the life of the savage. 

One of the infirmities of our nature is always to mistake 


MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. 


83 


feeling, for evidence, and to judge of the season by a cloud or 
a ray of sunshine. 

W as the misery, the sight of which made me regret a sav- 
age life, really the effect of civilization ? Must we accuse 
society of having created these evils, or acknowledge, on the 
contrary, that it has alleviated them ? Could the women and 
children who were receiving the coarse bread from the sol- 
dier, hope in the desert for more help or pity ? That dead 
man, whose forsaken state I deplored, had he not found, by 
the cares of an hospital, a coffin, and the humble grave where 
he was about to rest ? Alone, and far from men, he would 
have died like the wild beast in his den, and would now be 
serving as food for vultures ! These benefits of human soci- 
ety are shared, then, by the most destitute. Whoever eats 
the bread that another has reaped and kneaded, is under an 
obligation to his brother, and cannot say he owes him nothing 
in return. The poorest of us has received from society much 
more than his own single strength would have permitted him 
to wrest from nature. 

But cannot society give us more ? Who doubts it ? 
Errors have been committed in this distribution of tasks and 
workers. Time will diminish the number of them ; with new 
lights a better division will arise ; the elements of society go 
on towards perfection, like every thing else ; the difficulty is 
to know how to adapt ourselves to the slow step of time, 
whose progress can never be forced on without danger. 

August \\.tli , Six o'clock, a. m. — My garret window rises 
upon the roof like a massive watch-tower. The corners are 
covered by large sheets of lead, which run into the tiles ; the 
successive action of cold and heat has made them rise, and 
so a crevice has been formed in an angle on the right side. 
There a sparrow has built her nest. 

I have followed the progress of this aerial habitation from 
the first day. I have seen the bird successively bring tho 
straw, moss, and wool designed for the construction of her 


8i 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


abode ; and I have admired the persevering skill she expended 
in this difficult work. At first, my new neighbour spent her 
days in fluttering over the poplar in the garden, and in chirp- 
ing along the gutters. A fine lady’s life seemed the only 
one to suit her ; then, all of a sudden, the necessity of pre- 
paring a shelter for her brood transformed our idler into a 
worker, she no longer gave herself either rest or relaxation. 
I saw her always either flying, fetching, or carrying ; neither 
rain nor sun stopped her. A striking example of the power 
of necessity ! We are not only indebted to it for most of 
our talents, but for many of our virtues ! 

Is it not necessity which has given the people of less fa- 
voured climates that constant activity which has placed them 
so quickly at the head of nations ? As they are deprived of most 
of the gifts of nature, they have supplied them by their indus- 
try ; necessity has sharpened their understanding ; endurance 
awakened their foresight. Whilst elsewhere man, warmed 
by an ever brilliant sun, and loaded with the bounties of the 
earth, was remaining poor, ignorant, and naked, in the midst 
of gifts he did not attempt to explore, here, he was forced by 
necessity to wrest his food from the ground ; to build habita- 
tions to defend himself from the intemperance of the weather; 
and to warm his body by clothing himself with the wool of 
animals. Work makes him both more intelligent and more 
robust: disciplined by it, he seems to mount higher on the 
ladder of creation, while those more favoured by nature re- 
main on the step the nearest to the brutes. 

I made these reflections whilst looking at the bird, whose 
instinct seemed to have become more acute since she had 
been occupied in work. At last the nest was finished ; she 
set up her household there, and I followed her through all 
the phases of her new existence. 

When she had sat on the eggs, and the young ones were 
hatched, she fed them with the most attentive care. The 
corner of my window had become a stage of moral action, 


MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. 


85 


which fathers and mothers might come to take lessons from. 
The little ones soon became great, and this morning I have 
seen them take their first flight. One of them, weaker than 
the others, was not able to clear the edge of the roof, and 
fell into the gutter. I caught him with some difficulty, and 
placed him again on the tile in front of his house, but the 
mother has not noticed him. Once freed from the cares of 
a family, she has resumed her wandering life among the trees 
and along the roofs. In vain I have kept away from my 
window, to take from her every excuse for fear ; in vain the 
feeble little bird has called to her with plaintive cries ; his bad 
mother has passed by singing and -fluttering with a thousand 
airs and graces. Once only the father came near ; he looked 
at his offspring with contempt, and then disappeared never 
to return ! 

I crumbled some bread before the little orphan, but he 
* did not know how to peck it with his bill. I tried to catch 
him, but he escaped into the forsaken nest. What will be- 
come of him there, if his mother does not come back ! 

August \5th. Six o'clock. — This morning, on opening my 
window, I found the little bird dying upon the tiles ; his 
wounds showed me that he had been driven from the nest 
by his unworthy mother. I tried in vain to warm him again 
with my breath ; I felt the last pulsations of life ; his eyes 
were already closed, and his wings hung down ! I placed 
him on the roof in a ray of sunshine, and I closed my win- 
dow. The struggle of life against death has always some- 
thing gloomy in it : it is a warning to us. 

Happily I hear some one in the passage ; without doubt, 
it is my old neighbour ; his conversation will distract my 
thoughts. 

# # # # # 

It was my portress. Excellent woman ! She wished me 
to read a letter from her son the sailor, and begged me to 
answer it for her. 


86 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


I kept it, to copy it in my journal. Here it is : — 

“ Dear Mother — This is to tell you that I have been very 
well ever since the last time, except that last week I was 
nearly drowned with the boat, which would have been a great 
loss, as there is not a better craft any where. 

“ A gust of wind capsized us ; and just as I came up 
above water, I saw the captain sinking. I went after him, 
as was my duty, and, after diving three times, I brought him 
to the surface, which pleased him much ; for when we were 
hoisted on board, and he had recovered his senses, he threw 
his arms round my neck, as he would have done to an officer. 

“ I do not hide from you, dear mother, that this has de- 
lighted me. But it isn’t all ; it seems that fishing up the 
captain has reminded them that I had a good character, and 
they have just told me that I am promoted to be a sailor of 
the first class ! Directly I knew it, I cried out, 1 My mother 
shall have coffee twice a-day ! ’ And really, dear mother, 
there is nothing now to hinder you, as I shall now have a 
larger allowance to send you. 

“ I conclude, by begging you to take care of yourself if 
you wish to do me good ; for nothing makes me feel so well 
as to think th^t you want for nothing. 

•“ Your son, from the bottom of my heart, 

u Jacques.” 

This is the answer that the portress dictated to me : — 

II My good Jacquot — It makes me very happy to see that 
your heart is still as true as ever, and that you will never 
shame those who have brought you up. I need not tell you 
to take care of your life, because you know it is the same as 
my own, and that without you, dear child, I should wish for 
nothing but the grave ; but we are not bound to live, while 
We are bound to do our duty. 

11 Do not fear for my health, good Jacques, I was never 


MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. 81 

better ! I do not grow old at all, for fear of making you un- 
happy. I want nothing, and I live like a lady. I even had 
some money over this year, and as my drawers shut very badly, 
I put it into the Savings’ Bank, where I have opened an ac- 
count in your name. So, when you come back, you will 
find yourself with an income. I have also furnished your 
chest with new linen, and I have knitted you three new sea 
jackets. 

“ All your friends are well. Your cousin is just dead, 
leaving his widow in difficulties. I gave her your thirty 
francs remittance, and said that you had sent it her ; and 
the poor woman remembers you day and night in her prayers. 
So, you see, I have put that money in another sort of 
Savings’ Bank ; but there it is our hearts which get the inte- 
rest. 

“ Good-bye, dear Jacquot, write to me often, and always 
remember the good God, and your old mother, 

“ Phrosine Mtllot. 

Good son, and worthy mother ! how such examples oring 
us back to a love for the human race ! In a fit of fanciful 
misanthropy, we may envy the fate of the savage, and pre- 
fer that of the bird to such as he ; but impartial observa- 
tion soon does justice to such paradoxes. We find, on ex- 
amination, that in the mixed good and evil of human nature, 
the good so far abounds that we are not in the habit of no- 
ticing it, while the evil strikes us precisely on account of its 
being the exception. If nothing is perfect, nothing is so bad 
as to be without its compensation or its remedy. What 
spiritual riches are there in the midst of the evils of society ! 
how much does the moral world redeem the material ! 

That which will ever distinguish man from the rest of 
creation, is his power of deliberate affection, and of enduring 
self-sacrifice. The mother who took care of her brood in 
the corner of my window, devoted to them the necessary 


88 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


time for accomplishing the laws which ensure the preserva 
tion of her kind ; but she obeyed an instinct, and not a ra- 
tional choice. When she had accomplished the mission 
appointed her by Providence, she cast off the duty as we get 
jid of a burden, and she returned again to her selfish liberty. 
The other mother, on the contrary, will go on with her task 
as long as God shall leave her here below ; the life of her 
son will still remain, so to speak, joined to her own, and 
when she disappears from the earth, she will leave there that 
part of herself. 

Thus, the affections make for our species an existence 
separate from all the rest of creation. Thanks to them, we 
enjoy a sort of terrestrial immortality ; and if other beings 
succeed one another, man alone ‘perpetuates himself. 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. 

September \5tJi, Eight o'clock . — This morning, while I 
was arranging my books, mother Genevieve came in, and 
brought me the basket of fruit I buy of her every Sunday. 
For nearly twenty years that I have lived in this quarter, I 
have dealt in her little fruit-shop. Perhaps I should be 
better served elsewhere, but mother Genevieve has but little 
custom ; to leave her would do her harm, and cause her un- 
necessary pain. It seems to me that the length of our ac- 
quaintance has made me incur a sort of tacit obligation to 
her ; my patronage has become her property. 

She has put the basket upon my table, and as I wanted 
her husband, who is a joiner, to add some shelves to my 
bookcase, she has gone down stairs again immediately to 
send him to me. 


THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. 


89 


At first I did not notice either her looks or the sound oi 
her voice ; hut now, that I recall them, it seems to me that 
she was not as jovial as usual. Gan mother Genevieve he 
in trouble about any thing ? 

Poor woman ! All her best years were subject to such 
bitter trials, that she might think she had received her full 
share already. Were I to live a hundred years, I should 
never forget the circumstances which first made her known 
to me, and which obtained her my respect. 

It was at the time of my first settling in the faubourg. 
I had noticed her empty fruit-shop, which nobody came into, 
and, being attracted by its forsaken appearance, I made my 
little purchases in it. I have always instinctively preferred 
the poor shops ; there is less choice in them, but it seems to 
me that my purchase is a sign of sympathy with a brother 
in poverty. These little dealings are almost always an 
anchor of hope to those whose very existence is in peril — the 
only means by which some orphan gains a livelihood. There 
the aim of the tradesman is not to enrich himself, but to 
live ! The purchase you make of him is more than an ex- 
change — it is a good action. 

Mother Genevieve at that time was still young, but had 
already lost that fresh bloom of youth, which suffering 
causes to wither so soon among the poor. Her husband, a 
clever joiner, gradually left off working to become’ according 
to the picturesque expression of the workshops, a worshipper 
of Saint Monday. The wages of the week, which was 
always reduced to two or three working days, were com- 
pletely dedicated by him to the worship of this god of the 
Barriers, # and Genevieve was obliged hersiilf to provide for 
all the wants of the household. 

One evening, when I went to make some trifling pur* 

* The cheap wine-shops are outside the Barriers, to avoid the 
9droi, or municipal excise. 


90 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


chases of her, I heard a sound of quarrelling in the bach 
shop. There were the voices of several women, among 
which I distinguished that of Genevieve, broken by sobs. 
On looking further in, I perceived the fruit-woman, with a 
child in her arms, and kissing it, while a country nurse 
seemed to be claiming her wages from her. The poor 
woman, who without doubt had exhausted every explanation 
and every excuse, was crying in silence, and one of her 
neighbours was trying in vain to appease the countrywoman. 
Excited by that love of money which the evils of a hard pea- 
sant life but too well excuse, and disappointed by the refusal 
of her expected wages, the nurse was launching forth in 
recriminations, threats, and abuse. In spite of myself, I 
listened to the quarrel, not daring to interfere, and not think- 
ing of going away, when Michael Arout appeared at the 
shop-door. 

The joiner had just come from the Barrier, where he had 
passed part of the day at the public-house. His blouse, 
without a belt, and untied at the throat, showed none of the 
noble stains of work : in his hand he held his cap, which he 
had just picked up out of the mud ; his hair was in disor- 
der, his eye fixed, and the pallor of drunkenness in his face. 
He came reeling in, looked wildly around him, and called 
Genevieve. 

She heard his voice, gave a start, and rushed into the 
shop ; but at the sight of the miserable man, who was trying 
in vain to steady himself, she pressed -the child in her arms, 
and bent over it with tears. 

The countrywoman and the neighbour had followed her. 

“Come! Come! Ho you intend to pay me, after all?” 
cried the former in a rage. 

“ Ask the master for the money,” ironically answered the 
woman from next door, pointing to the joiner, who had just 
fallen against the counter. 

The countrywoman looked at him. 


THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. 


91 


“ Ah ! he is the father,” resumed she ; “ well, what idle 
beggars ! not to have a penny to pay honest people, and get 
tipsy with wine in that way.” 

The drunkard raised his head. 

“ What ! what ! ” stammered he ; “ who is it that talks 
of wine ? I’ve had nothing but brandy ! But I am going 
back again to get some wine ! Wife, give me your money ; 
there are some friends waiting for me at the Pere la TuilleP 
Genevieve did not answer : he went round the counter, 
opened the till, and began to rummage in it. 

“ You see where the money of the house goes ! ” observed 
the neighbour to the countrywoman ; 11 how can the poor 
unhappy woman pay you when he take's all ? ” 

<£ Is that my fault, then ? ” replied the nurse angrily ; 
“ they owe-it me, and somehow or other they must pay me ! 55 

And letting loose her tongue, as those women out of the 
country do, she began relating at length all the care she had 
taken of the child, and all the expense it had been to her. 
In proportion as she recalled all she had done, her words 
seemed to convince her more than ever of her rights, and to 
increase her anger. The poor mother, who no doubt feared 
that her violence would frighten the child, returned into the 
back shop, and put it into its cradle. 

Whether it was that the countrywoman saw in this act a 
determination to escape her claims, or that she was blinded 
by passion, I cannot say ; but she rushed into the next room, 
where I heard the sounds of quarrelling, with which the cries 
of the child were soon mingled. The joiner, who was still 
rummaging in the till, was startled, and raised his head. 

At the same moment Genevieve appeared at the door, 
holding in her arms the baby that the countrywoman was 
trying to tear from her. She ran towards the counter, and, 
throwing herself behind her husband, cried — 
u Michael, defend your son ! ” 


92 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


The drunken man quickly stood up erect, like one who 
awakes with a start. 

“ My son ! ” stammered he ; “ what son ? ” 

His looks fell upon the child; a vague ray of intelli- 
gence passed over his features. 

“ Robert,” resumed he ; “ it is Robert ! ” 

He tried to steady himself on his feet, that he might take 
the baby, but he tottered. The nurse approached him in a 
rage. 

“ My money, or I shall take the child away ! ” cried she ; 
“ it is I who have fed and brought it up : if you don’t pay 
for what has made it live, it ouglit to be the same to you as 
if it were dead. I shall not go till I have my due or the 
baby.” 

“ And what would you do with him ? ” murmured Gene- 
vieve, pressing Robert against her bosom. 

f( Take it to the Foundling ! ” replied the countrywoman 
harshly ; “ the hospital is a better mother than you are, for 
it pays for the food of its little ones.” 

At the word “Foundling,” Genevieve had exclaimed 
aloud in horror. With her arms wound round her son, 
whose head she hid in her bosom, and her two hands spread 
over him, she had retreated to the wall, and remained with 
her back against it, like a lioness defending her young ones. 
The neighbour and I contemplated this scene, without know- 
ing how we could interfere. As for Michael, he looked at 
us by turns, making a visible effort to comprehend it all. 
When his eye rested upon Genevieve and the child, it lit up 
with a gleam of pleasure ; but when he turned towards us, he 
again became stupid and hesitating. 

At last, apparently making a prodigious effort, he cried 
out — “ Wait ! ” 

And, going to a tub full of water, he plunged his face 
into it several times. 

Every eye was turned upon him ; the countrywoman her- 


THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. 


93 


self seemed astonished. At length he raised his dripping 
head. This ablution had partly dispelled his drunkenness; 
he looked at us for a moment, then he turned to Genevieve, 
and his face brightened up. 

“ Robert ! ” cried he, going up to the child, and taking 
him in his arms. “ Ah ! give him me, wife ; I must look at 
him.” 

The mother seemed to give up his son to him with re- 
luctance, and stayed before him with her arms extended, as 
if she feared the child would have a fall. The nurse began 
again in her turn to speak, and renewed her claims, this time 
threatening to appeal to law. At first Michael listened to 
her attentively, and when he comprehended her meaning, he 
gave the child back to its mother. 

“ How much do we owe you ? ” asked he. 

The countrywoman began to reckon up the different 
expenses, which mounted to nearly thirty francs. The joiner 
felt to the bottom of his pockets, but could find nolliing. 
His forehead became contracted by frowns; low curses 
began to escape him ; all of a sudden he rummaged in his 
breast, drew forth a large watch, and holding it up above his 
head — 

“ Here it is — here’s your money ! ” cried he with a joyful 
laugh ; “ a watch, number one ! I always said it would keep 
for a drink on a dry day ; but it is not I who will drink it, 
but the young one — Ah ! ah ! ah ! go and sell it for me, 
neighbour, and if that is not enough, I have my earrings. 
Eh ! Genevieve, take them off for me ; the earrings will 
square all ! They shall not say you have been disgraced on 
account of the child. No, — not even if I must pledge a bit 
of my flesh ! My watch, my earrings, and my ring, get rid 
of all of them for me at the goldsmith’s ; pay the woman, and 
let the little fool go to sleep. Give him me, Genevieve, J 
will put Him to bed.” 


94 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


And, taking the baby from the arms of his mother, he 
carried him with a firm step to his cradle. 

It was easy to perceive the change which took place in 
Michael from this day. He cut all his old drinking ac- 
quaintances. He went early every morning to his work, and 
returned regularly in the evening to finish the day with 
Genevieve and Robert. Very soon he would not leave them 
at all, and he hired a place near the fruit-shop, and worked 
in it on his own account. 

They would soon have been able to live in comfort, had 
it not been for the expenses which the child required. Every 
thing was given up to his education. He had gone through 
the regular school training, had studied mathematics, draw 
ing, and the carpenter’s trade, and had only begun to work 
a few months ago. Till now, they had been exhausting 
every resource which their laborious industry could provide 
to push him forward in his business ; but, happily, all these 
exertions had not proved useless : the seed had brought forth 
its fruits, and the days of harvest were close by. 

"While I was thus recalling these remembrances to my 
mind, Michael had come in, and was occupied in fixing 
shelves where they were wanted. 

During the time I was writing the notes of my journal, 
I was also scrutinizing the joiner. 

The excesses of his youth and the labour of his manhood 
have deeply marked his face, his hair is thin and grey, his 
shoulders stooping, his legs shrunken and slightly bent. 
There seems a sort of weight in his whole being. His very 
features have an expression of sorrow and despondency. He 
answered my questions by monosyllables, and like a man who 
wishes to avoid conversation. From whence is this dejec- 
tion, when one would think he had all he could wish for ? I 
should like to know ! 

Ten o'clock . — Michael is just gone down-stairs to look for 
a tool he has forgotten. I have at last succeeded in drawing 


THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUY. 


95 


from him the secret of his and Genevieve’s sorrow. Their 
son Robert is the cause of it ! 

Not that he has turned out ill after all their care — not 
that he is idle or dissipated ; but both were in hopes he 
would never leave them any more. The presence of the 
young man was to have renewed and made glad their lives 
once more ; his mother counted the days, his father prepared 
every thing to receive their dear associate in their toils, and 
at the moment when they were thus about to be repaid for 
all their sacrifices, Robert had suddenly informed them that 
he had just engaged himself to a contractor at Versailles. 

Every remonstrance and every prayer were useless ; he 
brought forward the necessity of initiating himself into all 
the details of an important contract, the facilities he' should 
have, in his new position, of improving himself in his trade, 
and the hopes he had of turning his knowledge to advantage. 
At last when his mother, having come to the end of her ar- 
arguments, began to cry, he hastily kissed her, and went away 
that he might avoid any further remonstrances. 

He had been absent a year, and there was nothing* to 
give them hopes of his return. His parents hardly saw him 
once a month, and then he only stayed a few moments with 
them. 

“ I have been punished where I had hoped to be reward* 
ed,” Michael said to me just now; “I had wished for a sav- 
ing and industrious son, and God has given me an ambitious 
and avaricious one ! I had always said to myself, that when 
once he was grown up, we should have him always with us, 
to recall our youth and to enliven our hearts ; his mother was 
always thinking of getting him married, and having children 
again to care for. You know women always will busy them- 
selves about others. As for me, I thought of him working 
near my bench, and singing his new songs — for he has learnt 
music, and is one of the best singers at the Orpheon. A 
dream, sir, truly ! Directly the bird was fledged, he took to 


96 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


flight, and remembers neither father nor mother. Yesterday, 
for instance, was the day we expected him ; he should have 
come to supper with us. No Robert to-day either ! He has 
had some plan to finish, or some bargain to arrange, and his 
old parents arc put down last in the accounts, after the cus- 
tomers and the joiner’s work. Ah ! if I could have guessed 
how it would have turned out ! Fool ! to have sacrificed my 
likings and my money, for nearly twenty years, to the edu- 
cation of a thankless son ! Was it for this I took the trouble 
to cure myself of drinking, to break with my friends, to be- 
come an example to the neighbourhood ? The jovial good 
fellow has made a goose of himself. Oh ! if I had to begin 
again ! No, no ! you see women and children are our bane. 
They soften our hearts ; they lead us a life of hope and affec- 
tion ; we pass a quarter of our lives in fostering the growth of 
a grain of corn which is to be every thing to us in our old 
age, and when the harvest-time comes — good-night, the ear is 
empty !” 

While he was speaking, Michael’s voice became hoarse, 
his eye fierce, and his lips quivered. I wished to answer 
him, but I could only think of common-place consolations, 
and I remained silent. The joiner pretended he wanted a 
tool, and left me. 

Poor father ! Ah ! I know those moments of temptation 
when virtue has failed to reward us, and we regret having 
obeyed her ! Who has not felt this weakness in hours of 
trial, and who has not uttered, at least once, the mournful 
exclamation of “ Brutus ?” 

But if virtue is only a word , what is there then in life 
which is true and real ? No, I will not believe that goodness 
is in vain ! It does not always give the happiness we had 
hoped for, but it brings some other. In the world every 
thing is ruled by order, and has its proper and necessary 
consequences, and virtue cannot be the sole exception to the 
general law. If it had been prejudicial to those who practise 


97 


/ 

THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. 

it, experience would Lave avenged them ; but experience has, 
on the contrary, made it more universal and more holy. We 
only accuse it of being a faithless debtor because we demand 
an immediate payment, and one apparent to our senses. W e 
always consider life as a fairy tale, in which every good ac- 
tion must be rewarded by a visible wonder. We do not ac- 
cept as payment a peaceful conscience, self-content, or a good 
name among men, treasures that are more precious than any 
other, but the value of which we do not feel till after we 
have lost them ! 

Michael is come back, and returned to his work. His 
son had not yet arrived. 

By telling me of his hopes and his grievous disappoint- 
ments, he became excited ; he unceasingly went over again 
the same subject, always adding something to his griefs. He 
has just wound up his confidential discourse by speaking to 
me of a joiner’s business which he had hoped to buy, and 
work to good account with Bobert’s help. The present own- 
er had made a fortune by it, and, after thirty years of busi- 
ness, he was thinking of retiring to one of the ornamental 
cottages in the outskirts of the city, a usual retreat for the 
frugal and successful working man. Michael had not indeed 
the two thousand francs which must be paid down ; but per- 
haps he could have persuaded Master Benoit to wait. Bo* 
bert’s presence would have been a security for him ; for the 
young man could not fail to ensure the prosperity of a work- 
shop ; besides science and skill, he had the power of invention 
and bringing to perfection. His father had discovered among 
his drawings a new plan for a staircase, which had occupied 
his thoughts for a long time ; and he even suspected him of 
having engaged himself to the Versailles contractor for the 
very purpose of executing it. The youth was tormented by 
this spirit of invention, which took possession of all his 
thoughts, and, while devoting his mind to study, he had no 
time to listen to his feelings. 

5 


98 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


Michael told me all this with a mixed feeling of pride 
and vexation. I saw he was proud of the son he was abus- 
ing, and that his very pride made him more sensible of that 
son’s neglect. 

Six o'clock , p. m. — I have just finished a happy day. How 
many events have happened within a few hours, and what a 
change for Genevieve and Michael ! 

He had just finished fixing the shelves, and telling me of 
his son, whilst I laid the cloth for my breakfast. 

Suddenly we heard hurried steps in the passage, the door 
opened, and Genevieve entered with Robert. 

The joiner gave a start of joyful surprise, but he repressed 
it immediately, as if he wished to keep up the appearance of 
displeasure. 

The young man did not appear to notice it, but threw 
himself into his arms in an open-hearted manner, which sur- 
prised me. Genevieve, whose face shone with happiness, 
seemed to wish to speak, and to restrain herself with diffi- 
culty. 

I told Robert I was glad to see him, and he answered 
me with ease and civility. 

“ I expected you yesterday,” said Michael Arout rather 
drily. 

“ Forgive me, father,” replied the young workman, “ but 
I had business at St. Germains. I was not able to come 
back till it was very late, and then the master kept me.” 

The joiner looked at his son sideways, and then took up 
his hammer again. 

“ It is right,” muttered he in a grumbling -tone ; 11 when 
we are with other people wg must do as they wish ; but there 
are some who would like better to eat brown bread with 
their own knife, than partridges with the silver fork of a 
master.” 

“ And I am one of those, father,” replied Robert merrily ; 
“but, as the proverb says, you must shell the peas before 


THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. 


99 


you can eat them. It was necessary that I should first 
work in a great workshop ” — 

“ To go on with your plan of the staircase,” interrupted 
Michael, ironically. 

“ You must now say M. Raymond’s plan, father,” replied 
Robert, smiling. 

« Wh^? » 

“ Because I have sold it to him.” 

The joiner, who was planing a board, turned round 
quickly. 

“ Sold it ! ” cried he, with sparkling eyes. 

“ For the reason that I was not rich enough to give it 
him.” 

Michael threw down the board and tool. 

“ There he is again ! ” resumed he, angrily; “his good 
genius puts an idea into his head which would have made 
him known, and he goes and sells it to a rich man, who will 
take the honour of it himself.” 

u Well, what harm is there done ? ” asked Genevieve. 

“ What harm ! ” cried the joiner, in a passion ; 11 you un- 
derstand nothing about it — you are a woman ; but he — he 
knows well that a true workman never gives up his own in- 
ventions for money, no more than a soldier would give up his 
cross. That is his glory ; he is bound to keep it for the 
honour it does him ! Ah ! thunder ! if I had ever made a 
discovery, rather than put it up at auction I would have sold 
one of my eyes ! Don’t you see, that a new invention is like 
a child to a workman ! he takes care of it, he brings it up, 
he makes a way for it in the world, and it is only poor crea- 
tures who sell it.” 

Robert coloured a little. 

“ You will think differently, father,” said he, “ when you 
know why I sold my plan.” 

“ Yes, and you will thank him for it,” added Genevieve, 
who could no longer keep silence. 


100 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


“ Never ! ” replied Michael. 

“ But, wretched man ! ” cried she, “ he only sold it for 
our sakes ! ” 

The joiner looked at his wife and son with astonishment 
It was necessary to come to an explanation. The latter re- 
lated how he had entered into a negotiation with Master Be- 
noit, who had positively refused to sell his business unless 
one-half of the two thousand fratcs was first paid down. It 
was in the hopes of obtaining this sum that he had gone to 
work with the contractor at Versailles; he had had an op-' 
portunity of trying his invention, and of finding a purchaser. 
Thanks to the money he received for it, he had just conclud- 
ed the bargain with Benoit, and had brought his father the 
key of the new work-yard. 

This explanation was given by the young workman with 
so much modesty and simplicity, that I was quite affected 
by it. Genevieve cried ; Michael pressed his son to his heart, 
and in a long embrace he seemed to ask his pardon for hav- 
ing unjustly accused him. 

All was now explained with honour to Bobert. The con- 
duct which his parents had ascribed to indifference, really 
sprang from affection ; he had neither obeyed the voice of 
ambition nor of avarice, nor even the nobler inspiration of 
inventive genius ; his whole motive and single aim had been 
the happiness of Genevieve and Michael. The day for prov- 
ing his gratitude had come, and he had returned them sacri- 
fice for sacrifice ! 

After the explanations and exclamations of joy were over, 
all three were about to leave me; but the cloth beino* laid, 
I added three more places, and kept them to breakfast. 

The meal was prolonged : the fare was only tolerable ; 
but the overflowings of affection made it delicious. Never 
had I better understood the unspeakable charm of family 
love. What calm enjoyment in that happiness which is al- 
ways shared with others ; in that community of interests 


OUR COUNTRY. 


101 


which unites such various feelings ; in that association of 
existences which forms one single being of so many ! What 
is man without those home affections, which, like so many 
roots, fix him firmly in the earth, and permit him to imbibe 
all the juices of life ? Energy, happiness, does it not all 
come from them? Without family life where would man 
learn to love, to associate, to deny himself? A community 
in little, is it not it which teaches us how to live in the great 
one ? Such is the holiness of home, that to express our re- 
lation with God, we have been obliged to borrow the words 
invented for our family life. Men have named themselves 
the sons of a heavenly Father ! 

Ah ; let us carefully preserve these chains of domestic 
union ; do not let us unbind the human sheaf, and scatter 
its ears to all the caprices of chance, and of the winds ; but 
let us rather enlarge this holy law ; let us carry the princi- 
ples and the habits of home beyond its bounds ; and, if it 
may be, let us realize the prayer of the Apostle of the Gen- 
tiles when he exclaimed to the new-born children of Christ : 
“ Be ye like-minded, having the same love, being of one ac- 
cord, of one mind.” # 


CHAPTER X. 

OUR COUNTRY. 

October 12th. Seven o'cloclc, a. m. — The nights are already 
become cold and long; the sun, shining through my curtains, 
no more wakens me long before the hour for work ; and even 
when my eyes are open, the ' pleasant warmth of the bed 
keeps me fast under my counterpane. Every morning there 


Pliilippians, ii. 2. 


102 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


begins a long argument between my activity and my indo 
lence ; and, snugly wrapped up to the eyes, I wait, like the 
Gascon, until they have succeeded in coming to an agreement. 

This morning, however, a light, which shone from my 
door upon my pillow, awoke me earlier than usual. In vain 
I turned on every side ; the persevering light, like a vieto 
rious enemy, pursued me into every position. At last, quite 
out of patience, I sat up and hurled my nightcap to the foot 
of the bed ! 

(I will observe, by way cf parenthesis, that the various 
evolutions of this pacific head-gear, seem to have been, from 
the remotest time, symbols of the vehement emotions of the 
mind ; for our language has borrowed its most common ima- 
ges from them. Thus we say : Mettre son bonnet de tra- 
vers ; jeter son bonnet par-dessus les moulins ; avoir la 
tele pres du bonnet , &c. # ) 

But be this as it may, I got up in a very bad humour, 
grumbling at my new neighbour who took it into his head 
to be wakeful when I wished to sleep. We are all made 
thus ; we do not understand that others may live on their 
own account. Each one of us is like the earth according to 
tho old system of Ptolemy; and thinks he can have the 
whole universe revolve round himself. On this point, to 
make use of the metaphor already alluded to : Tous les 
hoj'zmes ont la tete dans le meme bonnet, f 

I had for the time being, as I have already said, thrown 
mine to the other end of my bed ; and I slowly disengaged 
my legs from the warm bed-clothes, while making a host of 
evil reflections upon the inconvenience of having neigh- 
oours. 

Eor more than a month I had not had to complain of 

* To be in a bad humour. 

To brave the opinions of the world. 

To be angry about a trifle. 

f Said of those who are of the same opinions and tastes. 


OUR COUNTRY. 


103 


those 'whom chance had given me ; most of them only came 
in to sleep, and went away again on rising. I was almost 
always alone on this top-story — alone with the clouds and 
the sparrows ! 

But at Paris nothing lasts : the current of life carries 
us along, like the seaweed torn from the rock ; the houses 
are vessels which take mere passengers. How many differ- 
ent faces have I already seen pass along the landing- 
place belonging to our attics ! How many companions of a 
few days have disappeared for ever ! Some are lost in that 
medley of the living which whirls continually under the 
scourge of necessity ; and others in that resting-place of the 
dead, who sleep under the hand of God ! 

Peter the bookbinder is one of these last. Wrapped up 
in selfishness, he lived alone and friendless ; and he died as 
he had lived. His loss was neither mourned by any one, 
nor disarranged any thing in the world ; there was mere- 
ly a ditch filled up in the graveyard, and an attic emptied in 
our house. 

It is the same which my new neighbour has inhabited 
for the last few days. 

To say truly (now that I am quite awake, and my ill- 
humour is gone to join my nightcap) — to say truly, this new 
neighbour, although rising earlier than suits my idleness, is 
not the less a very good man : he carries his misfortunes, as 
few know how to carry their good fortunes, with cheerful- 
ness and moderation. 

But fate has cruelly tried him. Father Chaufour is but 
the wreck of a man. Instead of one of his arms hangs an 
empty sleeve ; his left leg is made by the turner, and he 
drags the right along with difficulty; but above these ruins 
rises a calm and happy face. While looking upon his coun- 
tenance radiant with a serene energy, while listening to his 
voice the tone of which has, so to speak, the accent of good- 
ness, we see that the soul has remained entire in the half- 


104 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


destroyed covering. The fortress is a little damaged, as 
father Chaufour says, but the garrison is quite hearty. 

Decidedly, the more I think of this excellent man, the 
more I reproach myself for the sort of malediction T bestow- 
ed on him when I awoke. 

We are generally too indulgent in our secret wrongs 
towards our neighbour. All ill-will which does not pass the 
region of thought seems innocent to us, and, with our clum- 
sy justice, we excuse, without examination, the sin which 
does not betray itself by action ! 

But are we then only bound to others by the enforce- 
ment of laws ? Besides these external relations, is there 
not a real relation of feeling between men ? Do we not owe 
to all those who live under the same heaven as ourselves, 
the aid not only of our acts but of our purposes ? Ought 
not every human life to be to us like a vessel that we ac- 
company with our prayers for a happy voyage ? It is not 
enough that men -do not harm one another, they must also 
help and love one another ! The papal benediction, TTrbi et 
orbi ! should be the constant cry from all hearts. To con- 
demn him who does not deserve it, even in the mind, even 
by a passing thought, is to break the great law, that which 
has established the union of souls here below, and to which 
Christ has given the sweet name of charity. 

These thoughts came into my mind as I finished dress- 
ing, and I said to myself that father Chaufour had a right 
to a reparation from me. To make amends for the feeling 
of ill-will I had against him just now, I owed him some ex- 
plicit proof of sympathy. I heard him humming a tune in 
his room ; he w&s at work, and I determined that I would 
make the first neighbour’s, call. 

Eight o’clock , p. m. — I found father Chaufour at a table 
lighted by a little smoky lamp, without a fire, although it is 
already cold, and making large pasteboard boxes ; he was 
humming a popular song in a low tone. I had hardly enter* 


OUR COUNTRY, 


105 


cd the room, when he uttered an exclamation of surprise and 
pleasure. 

“ Eh ! is it you, neighbour ? Come in, then ! I did not 
think you got up so early, so I put a damper on my music ; 
I was afraid of waking you.” 

Excellent man ! whilst I was sending him to the devil 
he was putting himself out of his way for me ! 

This thought touched me, and I paid my compliments on 
his having become my neighbour with a warmth which open- 
ed his heart. 

“ Faith ! you seem to me to have the look of a good 
Christian,” said he in a voice of soldierlike cordiality, and 
shaking me by the hand ; “ I do not like those people who 
look on a landing-place as a frontier line, and treat their 
neighbours as if they were Cossacks. When men snuff the 
same air, and speak the same lingo, they are not meant to 
turn their backs to each other. Sit down there, neighbour ; 
I don’t mean to order you ; only take care of the stool, it 
has but three legs, and we must put good-will in the place 
of the fourth.” 

“ It seems that that is a treasure which there is no want 
of here,” I observed. 

11 Good-will ! ” repeated Chaufour ; “ that is all my mo- 
ther left me, and I take it no son has received a better 
inheritance. Therefore they used to call me Mr. Content 
in the batteries.” 

“You are a soldier, then ? ” 

“ I served in the Third Artillery under the Republic, 
and afterwards in the Guard, through all the commotions. 
I was at Jemappes and at Waterloo; so I was at tho 
christening and at the burial of our glory, as one may 
say ! ” 

I looked at him with astonishment. 

“ And how old were you, then, at Jemappes ? ” asked I. 

“ Somewhere about fifteen,” said he. 

5 * 


10 c , AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 

l( How came you to think of being a soldier so early 

££ I did not really think about it. I then worked at toy*« 
making, and never dreamt that France could ask me for any 
thing else than to make her draught-boards, shuttlecocks, 
and cups and balls. But I had an old uncle at Vincennes 
whom I went to see from time to time ; a Fontenoy veteran 
in the same rank of life as myself, but with ability enough 
to have risen to that of a marshal. Unluckily, in those days 
there was no way for common people to get on. My uncle, 
whose services would have got him made a prince under the 
other , had then retired with the mere rank of sub-lieutenant. 
But you should have seen him in his uniform, his cross of 
St. Louis, his wooden leg, his white mustaches, and his 
noble countenance. You would have said he was a portrait 
of one of those old heroes in powdered hair which are at 
V ersailles ! 

“ Every time I visited him, he said something which re- 
mained fixed in my memory. But one day I found him 
quite grave. 

“ 1 J erome,’ said he, 1 do you know what is going on on the 
frontier ? ’ 

££ ‘ No, lieutenant,’ replied I. 

££ £ Well,’ resumed he, £ our country is in danger !’ 

££ I did not well understand him, and yet it seemed some- 
thing to me. 

££ £ Perhaps you have never thought 'what your country 
means,’ continued he, placing his hand on my shoulder ; £ it 
is all tiat surrounds you, all that has brought you up and 
fed you, all that you have loved ! This country that you 
see,' these houses, these trees, those girls who go along there 
laughing — this is your country ! The laws which protect 
you, the bread which pays for your work, the words you in- 
terchange with others, the joy and grief which come to you 
from the men and things among which you live — this is your 


OUR COUNTRY. 


10 ? 


country ! The little room where you used to see your mother, 
the remembrances she has left you, the earth where she rests — 
this is your country ! You see it, you breathe it, every where ! 
Think to yourself, my son, of your rights and your duties, your 
affections and your wants, your past and your present bless- 
ings ; write them all under a single name — and that name 
will be your country ! ’ 

“ I was trembling with emotion, and great tears were in 
my eyes. 

(c 1 Ah ! I understand,’ cried I ; 1 it is our home in large ; 
it is that part of the world where God has placed our body 
and our soul.’ 

“ 1 You are right, Jerome,’ continued the old soldier ; 1 so 
you comprehend also what we owe it.’ 

“ 1 Truly,’ resumed I, ‘ we owe it all that we are ; it is a 
question of love.’ 

“ 1 And of honesty, my son,’ concluded he : * the member 
of a family who does not contribute his share of work and of 
happiness fails in his duty, and is a bad kinsman ; the mem- 
ber of a partnership who does not enrich it with all his might, 
with all his courage, and with all his heart, defrauds it of 
what belongs to it, and is a dishonest man ; it is the same 
with him who enjoys the advantages of having a country, and 
does not accept the burdens of it ; he forfeits his honour, and 
is a bad citizen ! ’ 

“ 1 And what must one do, lieutenant, to be a good citi- 
zen ? ’ asked I. 

“ 1 Do for your country what you would do for your father 
and mother,’ said he. 

“ I did not answer at the moment ; my heart was swell- 
ing, and the blood boiling in my veins : but, on returning 
along the road, my uncle’s words were, so to speak, written 
up before my eyes. I repeated, c Do for your country what 
you would do for your father and mother.’ — And my country 


108 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


is in danger ; an enemy attacks it, whilst I — I turn cups and 
balls ! 

“This thought tormented me so much all night, that tho 
next day I returned to Vincennes to announce to the lieu- 
tenant that I had just enlisted, and was going off to the fron- 
tiers. The brave man pressed me upon his cross of St. Louis, 
and I went away as proud as an ambassador. 

“ That is how, neighbour, I became a volunteer under 
the Republic before I had cut my wise teeth. 

All this was told quietly, and in the cheerful spirit of him 
who looks upon an accomplished duty neither as a merit nor 
a grievance. 

While he spoke, father Chaufort grew animated, not on 
account of himself, but of the general subject. Evidently 
that which occupied him in the drama of life was not his own 
part, but the drama itself. 

This sort of disinterestedness touched me. I prolonged 
my visit, and showed myself as frank as possible, in order to 
win his confidence in return. In an hour’s time, he knew my 
position and my habits; I was on the footing of an old ac- 
quaintance. 

I even confessed the ill-humour the light of his lamp put 
me into a short time before. He took what I said with the 
touching cheerfulness which comes from a heart in the right 
place, and which looks upon every thing on the good side. 
He neither spoke to me of the necessity which obliged him 
to work whilst I could sleep, nor of the deprivations of the 
old soldier compared to the luxury of the young clerk ; he 
only struck his forehead, accused himself of thoughtlessness, 
and promised to put list round his door ! 

0 great and beautiful soul ! with whom nothing turns to 
bitterness, and who art peremptory only in duty and benev- 
olence. 

October 15 th . — This morning I was looking at a littlo 


OUR COUNTRY. 


109 


engraving I had framed myself, and hung over my writing- 
table ; it is a design of Gavarni’s, in which, in a grave mood, 
he hasrepresented A veteran and a conscript* 

By often contemplating these two figures, so different in 
expression, and so true to life, both have become living in my 
eyes ; I have seen them move, I have heard them speak ; the 
picture has become a real scene, at which I am present as 
spectator. 

The veteran advances slowly, his hand leaning on the 
shoulder of the young soldier. His eyes, closed for ever, no 
longer perceive the sun shining through the flowering chest- 
nut trees. In the place of his right arm hangs an empty 
sleeve, and he walks with a wooden leg, the sound of which 
on the pavement makes those who pass turn to look. 

At the sight of this ancient wreck from our patriotic wars, 
the greater number shake their heads in pity, and I seem to 
hear a sigh or an imprecation. 

“ See the worth of glory ! ” says a portly merchant, turn- 
ing away his eyes in horror. 

u What a deplorable use of human life ! ” rejoins a young 
man who carries a volume of philosophy under his arm. 

“ The trooper had better not have left his plough,” adds 
a countryman with a cunning air. 

11 Poor old man ! ” murmurs a woman almost crying. 

•The veteran has heard, and he knits his brow ; for it 
seems tc him that his guide has grown thoughtful. . The lat- 
ter, attracted by what he hears around him, hardly answers 
the old man’s questions, and his eyes, vaguely lost in space, 
seem to be seeking there for the solution of some problem. 

I seem to see a twitching in the grey mustaches of the 
veteran ; he stops abruptly, and, holding back his guide with 
his remaining arm — 

* See this beautiful composition in the Magazin Pittoresque for 1847. 


110 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


“ They all pity me,” says he, “ because they do not under 
stand it ; but if I were to answer them — ” 

u What would you say to them, father ? ” asks the young 
man with curiosity. 

“ I would say first to the woman who weeps when she 
looks at me, to keep her tears for other misfortunes ; foi 
each of my wounds call to mind some straggles for my col- 
ours. There is room for doubting how some men have done 
their duty : with me it is visible. I carry the account of my 
services, written with the enemy’s steel and lead, on myself : 
to pity me for having done my duty, is to suppose I had 
better have been false to it.” 

u And what would you say to the countryman, father ? ” 
“ I would tell him that, to drive the plough in peace, we 
must first secure the country itself ; and that, as long as there 
are foreigners ready to eat our harvest, there must be arms 
to defend it.” 

“ But the young student, too, shook his head when he 
lamented such a use of life.” 

“ Because he does not know what self-sacrifice and suf- 
fering can teach. The bo^ks which he studies we have put 
in practice though we never read them ; the principles he 
applauds we have defended with powder and bayonet.” 

“ And at the price of your limbs and your blood. The 
merchant said, when he saw your maimed body, ‘ See *the 
worth of glory ! ’ ” 

“ Bo not believe him, my son; true glory is the bread of 
the soul : it is this which nourishes self-sacrifice, patience, 
and courage. The Master of all has bestowed it as a tie the 
more between men. When we desire to be distinguished by 
our brethren, do we not thus prove our esteem and our sym 
pathy for them % The longing for admiration is but one side 
of love. No, no — true glory can never be too dearly paid 
for ! That which we should deplore, child, is not the infirm- 
ities which prove a generous self-sacrifice, but those which 


OUR COUNTRY. 


Ill 


our vices or our imprudence have called forth. Ah ! if I 
could speak aloud to those who, when passing, cast looks of 
pity upon me, I should say to the young man, whose excesses 
have dimmed his sight before he is old, ‘ What have you 
done with your eyes ! ’ To the slothful man, who with diffi- 
culty drags along his enervated mass of flesh, ‘ What Have 
you done with your feet ? ’ To the old man, who is punished 
for his intemperance by the gout, ‘ What have you done with 
your hands ? ’ To all, ‘ What have you done with the days God 
granted you, with the faculties you should have employed for 
the good of your brethren ? ’ If you cannot answer, bestow 
no more of your pity upon the old soldier maimed in his 
country’s cause ; for he — he at least — can show his scars 
without shame.” 

October 1 6 th . — The little engraving has made me com- 
prehend better the merits of father Chaufour, and I there- 
fore esteem him all the more. 

He has just now left my attic. There no longer passes 
a single day without his coming to work by my fire, or my 
going to sit and talk by his board. 

The old artilleryman has seen much, and likes to tell of 
it. For twenty years he was an armed traveller throughout 
Europe, and he fought without hatred, for he was possessed 
by a single thought : the honour of the national flag ! It 
might have been his superstition, if you will ; but it was, at 
the same time, his safeguard. 

The word France, which was then resounding so glori- 
ously through the world, served as a talisman to him against 
all sorts of temptation. To have to support a great name 
may seem a burden to vulgar minds ; but it is an encourage- 
ment to vigorous ones. 

“ I, too, have had many moments,” said he to me the 
other day, <c when I have been tempted to make friends with 
the devil. War is not precisely the school for rural virtues. 
By dint of burning, destroying, and killing, you grow a little 


112 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


tough as regards your feelings ; and, when the bayonet haft 
made you king, the notions of an autocrat come into yout 
head a little strongly. But at these moments I called to 
mind that country which the lieutenant spoke of to me, and 
I whispered to myself the well-known phrase, Toujour s Fran- 
gais ! It has been laughed at since. People who would make 
a joke of the death of their mother, have turned it into ridi- 
cule, as if the name of our country was not also a noble and 
a binding thing. For my part, I shall never forget from how 
many follies the title of Frenchman has kept me. When, 
overcome with fatigue, I have found myself in the rear of the 
colours, and when the musketry was rattling in the front 
ranks, many a time I heard a voice, which whispered in my 
ear, 1 Leave the others to fight, and for to-day take care of 
your own hide ! * But then, that word Frangais ! murmured 
within me, and I pressed forward to help my comrades. At 
other times, when irritated by hunger, cold, and wounds, I 
have arrived at the hovel of some Meinherr , I have been 
seized with an itching to break the master’s back, and to burn 
his hut ; but I whispered to myself Frangais ! and this name 
would not rhyme either with incendiary or murderer. I 
have, in this way, passed through kingdoms from east to west, 
and from north to south, always determined not to bring dis- 
grace upon my country’s flag. The lieutenant, you see, had 
taught me a magic word — My country ! Not only must we 
defend it, but we must also make it great and loved.” 

October \7th. — To-day I have paid my neighbour a long 
visit. A chance expression led the way to his telling me 
more of himself-than he had yet done. 

I asked him whether both hi3 limbs had been lost in the 
same battle. 

“ No, no ! ” replied he ; “ the cannon only took my leg 
• — it was the Clamart quarries that my arm went to feed.” 

And when I asked him for the particulars — 

“ That’s as easy as to say, good-morning,” continued he. 


OUR COUNTRY. 


113 


“After the great break-up at Waterloo, I stayed three months 
in the camp hospital to give my wooden leg time to grow 
As soon as I was able to hobble a little, I took leave of head 
quarters, and took the road to Paris, where I hoped to find 
some relation or friend ; but no — all were gone, or under 
ground. I should have found myself less strange at Vienna, 
Madrid, or Berlin. And although I had a leg the less to 
provide for, I was none the better off ; my appetite had come 
back, and my last half pence were taking flight. 

“ I had indeed met my old colonel, who recollected that 
I had helped him out of the skirmish at Montereau by giv- 
ing him my horse, and he had offered me bed and board at 
his house. I knew that the year before he had married a 
castle, and no few farms, so that I might become permanent 
coat-brusher to a millionnaire, which was not without its 
temptations. It remained- to see if I had not any thing 
better to do. One evening I set myself to reflect upon it. 

“ £ Let us see, Chaufour,’ said I to myself ; 1 the question 
is to act like a man. The colonel’s place suits you, but can- 
not you do any thing better? Your body is still in good 
condition, and your arms strong ; do you not owe all your 
strength .to your country, as your Vincennes uncle said? 
Why not leave some old soldier, more cut up than you are, 
to get his hospital at the colonel’s ? Come, trooper, you are 
still fit for another stout charge or two ! You must not lay 
up before your time.’ 

“ Whereupon I went to thank the colonel, and to offer my 
services to an old artilleryman, who had gone back to his 
home at Clamart, and who had taken up the quarryman’a 
pick again. 

“ For the first few months I played the conscript’s part — 
that is to say, there was more stir than work : but with a 
good will one gets the better of stones, as of every thing else. 
I did not become, so to speak, the leader of a column, but I 
brought up the rank among the good workmen, and I ate my 


114 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


bread with a good appetite, seeing I had earned it with a 
good will. For even under ground, you see, I still kept my 
pride. The thought that I was working to do my part in 
changing rocks into houses pleased my heart : I said to my- 
self, — 

“ 1 Courage, Chaufour, my old boy, you are helping to 
beautify your country.’ 

11 And that kept up my spirit. 

“ Unfortunately, some of my companions were rather too 
sensible to the charms of the brandy bottle ; so much so, 
that one day one of them, who could hardly distinguish his 
right hand from his left, thought proper to strike a light 
close to a charged mine. The mine exploded suddenly, and 
sent a shower of stone grape among us, which killed three 
men, and carried away the arm of which I have now only the 
sleeve.” 

“ So you were again without means of living ? ” said I to 
the old soldier. 

“ That is to say, I had to change them,” replied he quiet- 
ly. “ The difficulty was to find one which would do with 
five fingers instead of ten ; I found it, however.” 

“ How was that? ” 

“ Among the Paris street-sweepers.” 

“ What ! you have been one ” 

“ Of the pioneers of the health force for a while, neigh- 
bour, and that was not my worst time either. The corps of 
sweepers is not so low as it is dirty, I can tell you ! There 
are old actresses in it, who could never learn to save their 
money, and ruined merchants from the exchange ; we even 
had a professor of classics, who for a little drink would recite 
Latin to you, or Greek tragedies, as you chose. They could 
not have competed for the Monthyon prize ; but we excused 
faults on account of poverty, and cheered our poverty by our 
good-humour and jokes. I was as ragged and as cheerful as 
the rest, while trying to be something better. Even in the 


OUR COUNTRY. 


115 


/nire of tlie gutter I preserved my faith, that nothing is dis- 
honourable which is useful to our country.” 

“ 1 Chaufour,’ said I to myself with a smile, 1 after the 
sword the hammer ; after the hammer, the broom ; you are 
going down-stairs, my old boy. but you are still serving your 
country.’ 

“ However, you ended by leaving your new profession ? ” 
said I. 

“ A reform was required, neighbour ; the street-sweepers 
seldom haye their feet dry, and the damp at last made the 
wounds in my good leg open again. I could no longer follow 
the regiment, and it was necessary to lay down my arms. It 
is now two months since I left off working in the sanitary 
department of Paris. 

“ At the first moment I was daunted. Of my four limbs, 
I had now only my right hand, and even that had lost its 
strength ; so it was necessary to find some gentlemanly oc- 
cupation for it. After trying a little of every thing, I fell 
upon card box making, and here I am at cases for the lace 
and buttons of the national guard ; it is work of little profit, 
but it is within the capacity of all. By getting up at four 
and working till eight, I earn sixty-five centimes;* my lodg- 
ing and bowl of soup take fifty of them ; and there are three 
sous over for luxuries. So I am richer than France herself, 
for I have no deficit in my budget ; and I continue to serve 
her, as I save her lace and buttons.” 

At these words father Chaufour looked at me with a 
smile, and with his great scissors began cutting the green 
paper again for his card-board cases. My heart was touched, 
and I remained lost in thought. 

Here is still another member of that sacred phalanx who, 
in the battle of life, always march in front for the example 
and the salvation of the world ! Each of these brave sol- 


* About six pence halfpenny. 


116 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


diers lias his war-cry ; for this one it is “ Country,” for that 
“ Home,” for a third “ Mankind ; ” but they all follow the 
same standard — that of duty ; for all the same divine law 
reigns — that of self-sacrifice. To love something more than 
one’s-self — that is the secret of all that is great,* to know 
how to live for others — that is the aim of all noble souls. 


CHAPTER XI. 

MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 

November loth. Nine o' , clock ) p. m. — I had well stopped 
up the chinks of my window ; my little carpet was nailed 
down in its place ; my lamp, provided with its shade, cast a 
subdued light around ; and my stove made a low murmuring 
sound, as if some live creature was sharing my hearth with 
me. 

All was silent around me. But out of doors the snow 
and rain swept the roofs, and with a low, rushing sound, ran 
along the gurgling gutters ; sometimes a gust of wind forced 
itself beneath the tiles, which rattled together like castanets, 
and afterwards it was lost in the empty corridor. Then a 
slight and pleasurable shiver thrilled through my veins : I 
drew the flaps of my old wadded dressing-gown round me, I 
pulled my threadbare velvet cap over my eyes, and, letting 
myself sink deeper into my easy-chair, while my feet basked 
in the heat and light which shone through the door of the 
stove, I gave myself up to a sensation of enjoyment, made 
more lively by the consciousness of the storm which raged 
without. My eyes, swimming in a sort of mist, wandered 
over all the details of my peaceful abode ; they passed from 
my prints to my bookcase, resting upon the little chintz sofa, 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


117 


the white curtains of the iron bedstead, and the portfolio of 
loose papers — those archives of the attics ; and then, return- 
ing to the book I held in my hand, they attempted to seize 
once more the thread of the reading which had been thus in- 
terrupted. 

In fact this book, the subject of which had at first inter- 
ested me, had become painful to me. I had come to the con- 
clusion that the pictures of the writer were too sombre. His 
description of the miseries of the world appeared exaggerated 
to me ; I could not believe in such excess of poverty and of 
suffering ; neither God nor man could show themselves so 
harsh towards the sons of Adam. The author had yielded 
to an artistic temptation : he was making a show of the suf- 
ferings of humanity, as Nero burnt Rome for the sake of the 
picturesque. 

Taken altogether, this poor human house, so often 
repaired, so much criticised, is still a pretty good abode ; we 
may find enough in it to satisfy our wants, if we know how to 
set bounds to them ; the happiness of the wise man costs but 
little, and asks but little space. 

These consoling reflections became more and more con- 
fused. At last my book fell on the ground without my hav- 
ing the resolution to stoop and take it up again ; and, insensi- 
bly overcome by the luxury of the silence, the subdued light, 
and the warmth, I fell asleep. 

I remained for some time lost in the sort of insensibility 
belonging to a first sleep ; at last some vague and broken 
sensations came over me. It seemed to me that the day 
grew darker — that the air became colder — I half perceived 
bushes covered with the scarlet berries which foretell the 
coming of winter. I walked on a dreary road, bordered here 
and there with juniper-trees white with frost. Then the 
scene suddenly changed. I was in the diligence : the cold 
wind shook the doors and windows ; the trees, loaded with 
snow, passed by like ghosts ; in vain I thrust my benumbed 


118 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


feet into the crushed straw. At last the carriage stopped, 
and by one of those stage effects so common in sleep, I found 
myself alone in a harn, without a fire-place, and open to the 
winds on all sides. I saw again my mother’s gentle face, 
known only to me in my early childhood, the noble and stern 
countenance of my father, the little fair head of my sister, 
who was taken from us at ten years old : all my dead family 
lived again around me ; they were there, exposed to the bit- 
ings of the cold and to the pangs of hunger. My mother 
prayed by the resigned old man, and my sister, rolled up on 
some rags of which they had made her a bed, cried in silence, 
and held her naked feet in her little blue hands. 

It was a page from the book I had just read transferred 
into my own existence. 

My heart was oppressed with inexpressible anguish. 
Crouched in a corner, with my eyes fixed upon this dismal 
picture, I felt the cold slowly creeping upon me, and I said 
to myself with bitterness — 

“Let us die, since poverty is a dungeon guarded by sus- 
picion, apathy, and contempt, and from which it is vain to 
try to escape ; let us die, since there is no place for us at the 
banquet of the living ! ” 

And I tried to rise to join my mother again, and to wait 
at her feet for the hour of release. 

This effort dispelled my dream, and I awoke with a start. 

I ldoked around me ; my lamp was expiring, the fire in 
my stove extinguished, and my half-opened door was letting 
in an icy wind. I got up, with a shiver, to shut and double 
lock it, then I made for the alcove, and went to bed in haste. 

But the cold kept me awake a long time, and my thoughts 
continued the interrupted dream. 

The pictures I had lately accused of exaggeration now 
seemed but a too faithful representation of reality ] and I 
went to sleep without being able to recover myopticism — or 
my warmth. 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


119 


Thus did a cold stove and a lbadly closed door alter my 
point of view. All went well when my blood circulated 
properly ; all looked gloomy when the cold laid hold on me. 

This reminds me of the story of the duchess who 
was obliged to pay a visit to the neighbouring convent on 
a winter’s day. The convent was poor, there was no wood, 
and the monks had nothing but their discipline and the ardour 
of their prayers to keep out the cold. The duchess, who was 
shivering with cold, returned home, greatly pitying the poor 
monks. Whilst they were taking off her cloak, and adding 
two more logs to her fire, she called for her steward, whom 
she ordered to send some wood to the convent immediately. 
She then had her couch moved close to the fireside, the 
warmth of which soon revived her. The recollection of what 
she had just suffered was speedily lost in her present com- 
fort, when the steward came in again to ask how many loads 
of wood he was to send. 

11 Oh ! you may wait,” said the great lady carelessly ; 
“ the weather is very much milder.” 

Thus, man’s judgments are formed less from reason than 
from sensation ; and as sensation comes to him from the out- 
ward world, so he finds himself more or less under its influ- 
ence ; by little and little he imbibes a portion of his habits 
and feelings from it. 

It is not then without cause, that when we wish to judge 
of a stranger beforehand, we look for indications of his char- 
acter in the circumstances which surround him. The things 
amongst which we live are necessarily made to take our image, 
and we unconsciously leave in them a thousand impressions 
of our minds. As we can judge by an empty bed of the 
height and attitude of him who has slept in.it, so the abode of 
every man discovers to a close observer the extent of his in- 
telligence and the feelings of his heart. Bernardin de St. 
Pierre has related the story of a young girl who refused a 
cuitor, because he would never have flowers or domestic ani 


120 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


mals in bis bouse ; perhaps the sentence was severe, but not 
without reason. W e may presume that a man insensible to 
beauty, and to humble affection, must be ill-prepared to feel 
the enjoyments of a happy marriage. 

14 th, Seven o'clock , p. m.— This morning, as I was open- 
ing my journal to write, I had a visit from our old cashier. 

His sight is not so good as it was, his hand begins to 
shake, and the work he was able to do formerly is now be- 
coming somewhat laborious to him. I had undertaken to 
write out some of his papers, and he came for those I had 
finished. 

We conversed a long time by the stove, while he was 
drinking a cup of coffee which I made him take. 

M. Rateau is a sensible man, who has observed much and 
speaks little ; so that he has always something to say. 

While looking over the accounts I had prepared for him, 
his looks fell upon my journal, and I was obliged to acknowl- 
edge that in this way I wrote a diary of my actions and 
thoughts every evening for private use. From one thing to 
another, I began speaking to him of my dream the day be- 
fore, and my reflections about the influence of outward ob- 
jects upon our ordinary sentiments ; he smiled : — 

u Ah ! you too have my superstitions ,” he said quietly. 
“ 1 have always believed, like you, that you may know the 
game by the lair : it is only necessary to have tact and ex- 
perience; but without them we commit ourselves to many 
rash judgments. For my part, I have been guilty of this 
more than once, but sometimes I have also drawn a right con- 
clusion. I recollect especially, an adventure which goes as 
far back as the first years of my youth — ” 

He stopped, I looked at him as if I waited for his story, 
and he told it me at once. 

At this time he was still but third clerk to an attorney 
at Orleans. His master had sent him to Montargis on dif- 
ferent affairs, and he intended to return in the diligence the 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


121 


same evening, after having received the amount of a hill at a 
neighbouring town; hut they kept him at the debtor’s house, 
and when he was able to set out the day had already closed. 

Fearing not to be able to reach Montargis in good time, 
he took a cross-road they pointed out to him. Unfortunately 
the fog increased, no star was visible in the heavens, and the 
darkness became so great that he lost his road. He tried to 
retrace his steps, passed twenty footpaths, and at last found 
himself completely astray. 

After the vexation of losing his place in the diligence, 
came the feeling of uneasiness as to his situation. He was 
alone, on foot, lost in a forest, without any means of finding 
his right road again ; and he had a pretty considerable sum 
of money about him, for which he was responsible. His 
anxiety was increased by his inexperience. The idea of a 
forest was connected in his mind with so many adventures of 
robbery and murder that he expected some fatal encounter 
every instant. 

To say the truth, his situation was not encouraging. 
The place was not considered safe, and for some time past 
* there had been rumours of the sudden disappearance of seve- 
ral horse-dealers, though there was no trace of any crime 
having been committed. 

Our young traveller, with his eyes staring forward, and 
his ears listening, followed a footpath which he supposed 
might take him to some house or road ; but woods always 
succeeded to woods. At last he perceived a light at a dis- 
tance, and in a quarter of an hour he reached the high- 
road. 

A single house (the light from which had attracted him) 
appeared at a little distance. He was going towards the 
entrance gate of the court-yard, when the trot of a horse 
made him turn his head. A man on horseback had just ap- 
peared at the turning of the road, and in an instant was 
close to him. 


6 


122 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


The first words he addressed to the young man showed 
him to be the farmer himself. He related how he had lost 
himself, and learnt from the countryman that he was on the 
road to Pithiviers. Montargis was three leagues behind 
him. 

The fog had insensibly changed into a drizzling rain, 
which was beginning to wet the young clerk through ; he 
seemed afraid of the distance he had still to go, and the 
horseman, who saw his hesitation, invited him to come into 
the farm-house. 

It had something of the look of a fortress. Surrounded 
by a pretty high wall, it could not be seen except through 
the bars of the great gate, which was carefully closed. The 
farmer, who had got off his horse, did not go near it, but. 
turning to the right, he reached another entrance closed in 
the same way, but of which he had the key. 

Hardly had he passed the threshold, when a terrible 
barking resounded from each end of the yard. The farmer 
told his guest to fear nothing, and showed him the dogs 
chained up to their kennels ; both were of an extraordinary 
size, and so savage that the sight of their master himself 
could not quiet them. 

A boy, attracted by their barking, came out of the 
house, and took the farmer’s horse. The latter began 
questioning him about some orders he had given before he 
left the house, and went towards the stable to see that they 
had been executed. 

Thus left alone, our clerk looked about him. 

A lantern which the boy had placed on the ground 
cast a dim light over the court-yard. All around seemed 
empty and deserted. Not a trace was visible of the disor- 
der often seen in a country farm-yard, and which shows a 
temporary cessation of the work which is soon to be resumed 
again. Neither a cart forgotten there where the horses had 
been unharnessed, nor sheaves of corn heaped up ready for 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


123 


threshing, nor a plough overturned in a corner, and half-hid 
den under the freshly cut clover. The yard was swept, the 
barns shut up and padlocked. Not a single vine creeping up 
the walls ; every where stone, wood, and iron ! 

He took up the lantern and went up to the corner of the 
house. Behind was a second yard, where he heard the bark- 
ing of a third dog, and a covered well was built in the mid- 
dle of it. 

Our traveller looked in vain for the little farm garden, 
where pumpkins of different sorts creep along the ground or 
where the bees from the hives hum under the hedges of 
honeysuckle and elder. Verdure and flowers were nowhere 
to be seen. He did not even perceive the sight of a poultry- 
yard or pigeon-house. The habitation of his host was every 
where wanting ifi that which makes the grace, the life, and 
the charm of the country. 

The young man thought that his host must be of a very 
careless, or a very calculating disposition, to concede so little 
to domestic enjoyments and the pleasures of the eye ; and 
judging, in spite of himself, by what he saw, he could not 
help feeling a distrust of his character. 

In the mean time the farmer returned from the stables, 
and made him enter the house. 

The inside of the farm-house corresponded to its outside. 
The whitewashed walls had no other ornament than a row 
of guns of all sizes ; the massive furniture scarcely redeemed 
its clumsy appearance by its great solidity. The cleanliness 
was doubtful, and the absence of all minor conveniences 
proved that a woman’s care was wanting in the household 
concerns. The young clerk learnt that the farmer, in fact, 
lived here with no one but his two sons. 

Of this, indeed, the signs were plain enough. A table 
with a cloth laid, that no one had taken the trouble to clear 
away, was left near the window. The plates and dishes 
were scattered upon it without any order, and loaded with 


124 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


potatoe pairings and half-picked bones. Several empty bot* 
ties emitted an odour of brandy, mixed with the pungent 
smell of tobacco smoke. 

After having seated his guest, the farmer lit his pipe, 
and his two sons resumed their work by the fireside. Now 
and then the silence was just broken by a short remark, an- 
swered by a word or an exclamation ; and then all became 
as mute as before. 

“ From my childhood,” said the old cashier, “I had been 
very sensible to the impression of outward objects ; later in 
life, reflection had taught me to study the causes of these im- 
pressions rather than to drive them away. I set myself, 
then, to examine every thing around me with great atten 
tion. 

“ Below the guns I had remarked on entering, some wolf- 
traps were suspended, and to one of them still hung the 
mangled remains of a wolf’s paw, which they had not yet 
taken off from the iron teeth. The blackened chimneypiece 
was ornamented by an owl and a raven nailed on the wall, 
their wings extended, and their throats with a huge nail 
through each ; a fox’s skin, freshly flayed, was spread before 
the window; and a larder hook, fixed into the principal 
beam, held a headless goose, whose body swayed about over 
our heads. 

“ My eyes were offended by all these details, and I 
turned them again upon my hosts. The father, who sat op- 
posite to me, only interrupted his smoking to pour out his 
drink, or address some reprimand to his sons. The eldest 
of these was scraping a deep bucket, and the bloody scrap- 
ings, which he threw into the fire every instant, filled the 
room with a disagreeable fetid smell ; the second son was 
sharpening some butcher’s knives. I learnt from a word 
dropped from the father, that they were preparing to kill a 
pig the next day. 

11 These occupations and the whole aspect of things inside 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


125 


tlie house, told of such habitual coarseness in their way of liv- 
ing, as seemed to explain, while it formed the fittiug coun- 
terpart of the forbidding gloominess of the outside. My 
astonishment by degrees changed into disgust, and my dis- 
gust into uneasiness. I cannot detail the whple chain of 
ideas which succeeded one another in my imagination ; but, 
yielding to an impulse I could not overcome, I got up, de- 
claring I would go on my road again. 

“ The farmer made some. efforts to keep me; he spoke of 
the rain, of the darkness, and of the length of the way. I 
replied to all by the absolute necessity there was for my be- 
ing at Montargis that very night ; and thanking him for his 
brief hospitality, I set off again in a haste, which might well 
have confirmed the truth of my words to him. 

“ However, the freshness of the night, and the exercise 
of walking, did not fail to change the direction of my 
thoughts. When away from the objects which had awaken- 
ed such lively disgust in me, I felt it gradually diminish- 
ing. I began to smile at the susceptibility of my feelings, 
and then, in proportion as the rain became heavier and 
colder, these strictures on myself assumed a tone of ill- tem- 
per. I silently accused myself of the absurdity of mistak- 
ing sensation for admonitions of my reason. After all, were 
not the farmer and his sons free to live alone, to hunt, to 
keep dogs, and to kill a pig ? where was the crime of it ? 
With less nervous susceptibility, I should have accepted the 
shelter they offered me, and I should now be sleeping snugly 
on a truss of straw, instead of walking with difficulty through 
the cold and drizzling rain. I thus continued to reproach 
myself, until towards inorning I arrived at Montargis, jaded 
and benumbed with cold. 

“ When, however, I got up refreshed, towards the middle 
of the next day, I instinctively returned to my first opinion. 
The appearance of the farm-house presented itself to me un- 
der the same repulsive colours, which the evening before had 


126 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


determined me to make my escape from it. Reason itself 
remained silent when reviewing all those coarse details, and 
was forced to recognise in them the indications of a low na 
tnre, or else the presence of some baleful influence. 

“ I went away the next day without being able to learn 
any thing concerning the farmer or his sons; but the recollec- 
tion of my adventure remained deeply fixed in my memory. 

“ Ten years afterwards, I was travelling in the diligence 
•through the department of the Loiret; I was leaning from 
the window, and looking at some coppice ground now for the 
first time brought under cultivation, and the mode of clear- 
ing which one of my travelling companions was explaining to 
me, when my eyes fell upon a walled enclosure, with an iron- 
barred gate. Inside it, I perceived a house with all the 
blinds closed, and which I immediately recollected — it was 
the farm-house where I had been sheltered: I eagerly pointed 
it out to my companion, and asked who lived in it. 

“ ‘ Nobody, just now,’ replied he. 

“ ‘ But was it not kept, some years ago, by a farmer and 
his two sons ? ’ 

11 1 The Turreaus,’ said my travelling companion looking 
at me ; 1 did you know them ? ’ 

“ 1 1 saw them once.’ 

“ He shook his head. 

u 1 Yes, yes ! ’ resumed he ; 1 for many years they lived 
there like wolves in their den ; they merely knew how to till 
the land, kill game, and drink. The father managed the 
house, but men living alone, without women to love them, 
without children to soften them, and without God to make 
them think of heaven, always turn into wild beasts you see ; 
so one morning, the eldest son, who had been drinking too 
much brandy, would not harness the plough-horses, his father 
struck him with his whip, and the son, who was mad drunk, 
shot him dead with his gun.’ ” 

16^, p.m. — I have been thinking of the story of the old 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


127 


casliier tliese two days ; it came so opportunely upon tlie 
reflections my dream liad suggested to me. 

Have I not an important lesson to learn from all this ? 

If our sensations have an incontestable influence upon our 
judgments, how comes it that we are so little careful of those 
things which awaken or modify these sensations. ? The ex- 
ternal world is always reflected in us as in a mirror ; and fills 
our minds with pictures which, unconsciously to ourselves, 
become the germs of our opinions, and of our rules of con- 
duct. All the objects which surround us are then, in reality, 
so many talismans from whence good and bad influences are 
emitted. It is for us to choose them wisely, so as to create 
a healthy atmosphere for our minds. 

Feeling convinced of this truth, I set about making a 
survey of my attic. 

The first object on which my eyes rest, is an old map of 
the history of the principal monastery in my native province. 
I had unrolled it with much satisfaction, and placed it on 
the most conspicuous part of the wall. "Why had I given it 
this place ? Ought this sheet of old worm-eaten parchment 
to be of so much value to me, who am neither an antiquary 
nor a scholar ? Is not its real importance in my sight, that 
one of the abbots who founded it bore my name ; and that I 
shall, perchance, be able to make myself a genealogical tree 
of it, for the edification of my visiters ? While writing this, 
I feel my own blushes. Come, down with the map ! let us 
banish it into my deepest drawer. 

As I passed my glass, I perceived several visiting cards 
complacently displayed in the frame. By what chance is it 
that there are only names that make a show among them ? — 
Here is a Polish count — a retired colonel — the deputy of my 
department — Quick, quick, into the fire with these proofs of 
vanity ! and let us put this card in the hand-writing of our 
office boy, this direction for cheap dinners, and the receipt of 


128 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


the broker where I bought my last arm-chair, in their place. 
These indications of my poverty will serve, as Montaigne 
says, mater ma superbe , and will always make me recollect 
the modesty in which the dignity of the lowly consists. 

I have stopped before the prints hanging upon the wall. 
This large and smiling Pomona, seated on sheaves of corn, 
and whose basket is overflowing with fruit, only produces 
thoughts of joy and plenty ; I was looking at her the other 
day, when I fell asleep denying such a thing as misery. Let 
us give her as companion this picture of Winter, in which 
every thing tells of sorrow and suffering : one picture will 
modify the other. 

And this Happy Family of Greuze’s ! What joy in the 
children’s eyes ! what sweet repose in the young woman’s 
face ! what religious feeling in the grandfather’s countenance ! 
May God preserve their happiness to them ! but let us hang 
by its side the picture of this mother, who weeps over an 
empty cradle. Human life has two faces, both of which we 
must dare to contemplate in their turns. 

Let me hide, too, these ridiculous monsters which orna- 
ment my chimneypiece. Plato has said, that the beautiful is 
nothing else than the visible form of the good. If it is so, 
the ugly should be the visible form of the evil, and, by con- 
stantly beholding it, the mind insensibly deteriorates. 

But above all, in order to cherish the feelings of kindness 
and pity, let me hang at the foot of my bed this affecting 
picture of the Last Sleep ! 

Never have I been able to look at it without feeling my 
heart touched. 

An old woman, clothed in rags, is lying by a roadside : 
her stick is at her feet, and her head rests upon a stone; she 
has fallen asleep ; her hands are clasped ; murmuring a 
prayer of her childhood, she sleeps her last sleep, she dreams 
hey last dream ! 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


1215 


She sees herself, again a strong and happy child, keeping 
the sheep on the common, gathering the berries from the 
hedges, singing, curtsying to the passers-by, and making the 
sign of the cross when the first star appears in the heavens !* 
Happy time, filled with fragrance and sunshine ! She wants 
nothing yet, for she is ignorant of what there is to wish for. 

But see her grown up ; the time is come for working 
bravely : she must cut the corn, thresh the wheat, carry the 
bundles of flowering clover or branches of withered leaves to 
the farm. If her toil is hard, hope shines like a sun over 
every thing ; and it wipes the drops of sweat away. The 
growing girl already sees that life is a task ; but she still 
sings as she fulfils it. 

By and by, the burden becomes heavier ; she is a wife, 
she is a mother ! She must economize the bread of to-day, 
have her eye upon the morrow, take care of the sick, and 
sustain the feeble ;* she must act, in short, that part of an 
earthly Providence, so easy when God gives us his aid, so 
hard when he forsakes us. The woman is still strong ; but 
she is anxious ; she sings no longer ! 

Yet a few years, and all is overcast. The husband’s 
health is broken ; his wife sees him pine away by the now 
fireless hearth; cold and hunger finish what sickness had 
begun ; he dies, and his widow sits on the ground by the 
coffin provided by the charity of others, pressing her two half- 
naked little ones in her arms. She dreads the future, she 
weeps, and she droops her head. 

At last, the future is come; the children are grown up, 
but they are no longer with her. Her son is fighting under 
his country’s flag, and his sister is gone. Both have been 
lost -to her for a long time — perhaps for ever; and the strong 
girl, the brave wife, the courageous mother,^ is from hence- 
forth but an aged beggar-woman without a family, and with* 

* The time of evening prayer in Roman Catholic countries. 

G* 


130 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


out a home ! She weeps no more, sorrow has subdued her ; 
she surrenders, and waits for death. 

Death, that faithful friend of the wretched, is come : not 
hideous and with mockery, as superstition represents, but 
beautiful, smiling, and crowned with stars ! The gentle phan- 
tom stoops to the beggar ; its pale lips murmur a few airy 
words, which announce to her the end of her labours ; a peace- 
ful joy comes over the aged beggar-woman, and, leaning on 
the shoulder of the great Deliverer, she has passed uncon- 
sciously from her last earthly sleep to her eternal rest. 

Lie there — thou poor way- wearied woman ! the leaves will 
serve thee for a winding-sheet, night will shed her tears of 
dew over thee, and the birds will sing sweetly by thy remains. 
Thy visit here below will not have left more trace than their 
flight through the air ; thy name is already forgotten, and 
the only legacy thou hast to leave is the hawthorn stick lying 
forgotten at thy feet ! 

Well ! some one will take it up — some soldier of that 
great human host which is scattered abroad by misery or by 
vice ; for thou art not an exception, thou art an instance ; and 
under the same sun which shines so pleasantly upon all, in 
the midst of these flowering vineyards, this ripe corn, and 
these wealthy cities, entire generations suffer, succeed each 
other, and still bequeath to each the beggar’s stick ! 

The sight of this sad picture shall make me more grate- 
ful for what God has given me, and more compassionate for 
those whom He has treated with less indulgence ; it shall 
be a lesson, and a subject for reflection for me. 

Ah ! if we would watch for every thing that might im- 
prove and instruct us ; if the arrangements of our daily life 
were so disposed as to be a constant school for our minds ! 
but oftenest we take no heed of them. Man is an eternal 
mystery to himself ; his own person is a house into which he 
never enters, and of which he studies the outside alone. 
Each of us need have continually before him the famous in- 


THE END OF THE YEAR. 


131 


scription which once instructed Socrates, and which was en 
graved on the walls of Delphi by an unknown hand : — 

“KNOW THYSELF.” 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE END OF THE YEAR. 

December 30 th, p. m. — I was in bed, and hardly recovered 
from the delirious fever which had kept me for so long be- 
tween life and death. My weakened brain was making efforts 
to recover its activity ; my thoughts, like rays of light strug- 
gling through the clouds, were still confused and imperfect : 
at times, I felt a return of the dizziness which made a chaos 
of all my ideas, and I floated, so to speak, between alternate 
fits of mental wandering and consciousness. 

Sometimes every thing seemed plain to me, like the pros- 
pect which, from the top of some high mountain, opens be- 
fore us in clear weather. We distinguish water, woods, vil- 
lages, cattle, even the cottage perched on the edge of the 
ravine; then suddenly there comes a gust of wind laden with 
nist, and all is confused and indistinct. 

Thus, yielding to the oscillations of a half-recovered rea- 
ion, I allowed my mind to follow its various impulses with- 
out troubling myself to separate the real from the imaginary ; 
£ glided softly from one to the other, and my dreams and 
making thoughts succeeded closely upon one another. 

Now, whilst my mind was wandering in this unsettled 
state, see, underneath the clock which measures the hours 
with its loud ticking, a female figure appears before me ! 

At first sight I saw enough to satisfy me that she was 
not a daughter of Eve. In her eye was the last flash of an 


132 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


expiring star, and her face had the pallor of an heroic death 
struggle. She was dressed in a drapery of a thousand chang- 
ing colours of the brightest and the most sombre hues, and 
she held a withered garland in her hand. 

After having contemplated her for some moments I asked 
her name, and what brought her into my attic. Her eyes, 
which were following the movements of the clock, turned 
towards me, and she replied : — 

“ You see in me the year which is just drawing to its end ; 
I come to receive your thanks and your farewell.” 

I raised myself on my elbow in surprise, which soon gave 
place to bitter resentment. 

“ Ah ! you want thanks,” cried I ; 11 but first let me know 
what for ? 

“ When I welcomed your coming, I was still young and 
vigorous : you have taken from me each day some little of 
my strength, and you have ended by inflicting an illness upon 
me : already, thanks to you, my blood is less warm, my 
muscles less firm, and my feet less agile than before ! You 
have planted the germs of infirmity in my bosom ; there, 
where the summer flowers of life were growing, you have 
wickedly sown the nettles of old ago ! 

“ And, as if it was not enough to weaken my body, you 
have also diminished the powers of my soul ; you have ex- 
tinguished her enthusiasm : she is become more sluggish and 
more timid. Formerly her eyes took in the whole of man- 
kind in their generous survey ; but you have made her near- 
sighted, and now she scarcely sees beyond herself ! 

“ That is what you have done for my spiritual being • 
then as to my outward existence, see to what grief, neglect, 
and misery you have reduced it ! 

“ For the many days that the fever has kept me chained 
to this bed, who has taken care of this home, in which I 
placed all my joy ! Shall I not find my closets empty, my 
bookcase stripped, all my poor treasured lost through negli 


THE END OF THE YEAR. 


133 


geiice or dishonesty ? Where are the plants I cultivated, 
tlm birds I fed ? all are gone ! my attic- is despoiled, silent, 
and solitary ! 

“As it is only for the last few moments that I have re- 
turned to a consciousness of what surrounds me, I am even 
ignorant who has nursed me during my long illness ! Doubt- 
less some hireling, who will leave when all my means of re- 
compense are exhausted ! 

“ And what will my masters, for whom I am bound to 
work, have said to my absence ? At this time of the year, 
when business is most pressing, can they have done with- 
out me, will they even have tried to do so ? Perhaps I 
am already superseded in the humble situation by which I 
earned my daily bread ! And it is thou — thou alone, wicked 
daughter of Time — who hast brought all these misfortunes 
upon me : strength, health, comfort, work — thou hast taken 
all from me ; I have only received outrage and loss from thee, 
and yet thou darest to claim my gratitude ! 

“ Ah ! die then, since thy day is come ; but die despised 
and cursed ; and may I write on thy tomb the epitaph the 
Arabian poet inscribed upon that of a king — 

“ Rejoice , thou passer-by : he whom we have buried here 
cannot live again?' 

####### 

I was awakened by a hand taking mine, and opening my 
eyes, I recognised the doctor. 

After having felt my pulse, he nodded his head, sat down 
at the foot of the bed, and looked at me, rubbing his nose 
with his snuff-box. 

I have since learnt that this was a sign of satisfaction 
with the doctor. 

“Well! so we wanted old snub-nose to carry us off?” 
said M. Lambert, in his half-joking, half-scolding way. What 
the deuce of a hurry we were in ! It was necessary to hold 
you back with both arms at least ! ” 


134 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 

“ Then you had given me up, doctor ? ” asked I, rather 
alarmed. 

“ Not at all,” replied the old physician; “we can’t give 
lip what we have not got ; and I make it a rule never to have 
any hope. We are hut instruments in the hands of Provi- 
dence, and each of us should say with Ambroise Pare : 1 I 
tend him, God cures him ! ’ ” 

“ May He be blessed then, as well as you,” cried I ; 

1 and may my health come back with the New-year ! ” 

M. Lambert shrugged his shoulders. 

“ Begin by asking yourself for it,” resumed he bluntly. 
“ God has given it you, and it is your own sense, and not 
chance, that must keep it for you. One would think, to hear 
people talk, that sickness comes upon us like the rain, dr the 
sunshine, without one having a word to say in the matter. 
Before we complain of being ill, we should pfove that we 
deserved to be well.” 

I was about to smile, but the doctor looked angry. 

“ Ah ! you think that I am joking,” resumed he, rais- 
ing his voice ; “ but tell me, then, which of us gives his health 
the same attention that he gives to his business ? Do you 
economise your strength as you economise your money ? Do 
you avoid excess and imprudence in the one case, with the 
same care as extravagance or foolish speculations in the 
other ? Do you keep as regular accounts of your mode of 
living as you do of your income ? Do you consider every 
evening what has been wholesome or unwholesome for you, 
with the same care as you bring to the examination of your 
expenditure ? You may smile ; but have you not brought 
this illness on yourself by a thousand indiscretions ? ” 

I began to protest against this, and asked him to point- 
out these indiscretions; the old doctor spread out his fingers, 
'knd began to reckon upon them one by one. 

“■ Primo” cried he, “ want of exercise. You live here 
like a mouse in a cheese, without air, motion, or change 


THE END OF THE YEAR. 


135 


Consequently, tlie blood circulates badly, the fluids thicken, 
the muscles, being inactive, do not claim their share of nutri- 
tion’ the stomach flags, and the brain grows weary. 

“ Secundo. Irregular food. Caprice is your cook ; your 
stomach a slave who must accept what you give it, but who 
presently takes a sullen revenge, like all slaves. 

“ Tertio. Sitting up late. Instead of using the night for 
sleep, you spend it in reading ; your bedstead is a bookcase, 
your pillow a desk ! At the time when the wearied brain 
asks for rest, you lead it through these nocturnal orgies*, and 
you are surprised to find it the worse for them the next day. 

“ Quarto. Luxurious habits. Shut up in your attic, 
you insensibly surround yourself with a thousand effeminate 
indulgences. You must have list for your door, a blind for 
your window, a carpet for your feet, an easy-chair stuffed 
with wool for your back, your fire lit at the first sign of 
cold, and a shade to your lamp : and, thanks to all these 
precautions, the least draught makes you catch cold, com- 
mon chairs give you no rest, and you must wear spectacles 
to support the light of day. You have thought you were 
acquiring comforts, and you have only contracted infirmi- 
ties. 

u Quinto •” 

“ Ah ! enough, enough, doctor ! ” cried I. 11 Pray, do 
not carry your examination further ; do not attach a sense 
of remorse to each of my pleasures.” 

The old doctor rubbed his nose with his snuff-box. 

“ You see,” said he more gently, and rising at the same 
time, “ you would escape from the truth. You shrink from 
inquiry — a proof that you are guilty. Hdbemus confiten- 
tem reum l But at least, my friend, do not go on laying 
the blame on Time, like an old woman.” 

Thereupon he again felt my pulse, and took his leave, 
declaring that his function was at an end, and that the rest 
depended upon myself. 


136 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


When the doctor was gone, I set about reflecting upon 
what he had said. 

Although his words were too sweeping, they were not 
the less true in the main. How often we accuse chance of 
an illness, the origin of which we should seek in ourselves ! 
Perhaps it would have been wiser to have let him finish the 
examination he had begun. 

But is there not another of more importance — that 
which concerns the health of the soul % Am I so sure of 
having neglected no means of preserving that during the 
year which is now ending ? Have I, as one of God’s sol- 
diers upon earth, kept my courage and my arms efficient ? 
Shall I be ready for the great review of. souls which must 
pass before him who is in the dark valley of Jehosha- 
phat ? 

Darest thou examine thyself, 0 my soul ! and see how 
often thou hast erred ? 

First, thou hast erred through pride ! for I have not 
duly valued the lowly. I have drunk too deeply of the in- 
toxicating wines of genius, and have found no relish in pure 
water. I have disdained those words which had no other 
beauty than their sincerity ; I haye ceased to love men sole- 
ly because they are men — I have loved them for their en- 
dowments ; I have contracted the world within the • narrow 
compass of a pantheon, and my sympathy has been awaken- 
ed by admiration only. The vulgar crowd, which I ought 
to have followed with a friendly eye because it is composed 
of my brothers in hope or grief, I have let pass by me with 
as much indifference as if it were a flock of sheep. I am in- 
dignant with him who rolls in riches and despises the man 
poor in worldly wealth ; and yet, vain of my trifling know- 
ledge, I despise him who is poor in mind — I scorn the pov- 
erty of intellect as others do that of dress ; I take credit 
for a gift which I did not bestow on myself, and turn the 


THE END OF THE YEAR. 137 

favour of fortune into a weapon with which to attack 
others. 

Ah ! if, in the worst days of revolutions, ignorance has 
revolted and raised a cry of hatred against genius, the 
fault is not alone in the envious malice of ignorance, hut 
comes in part, too, from the contemptuous pride of know- 
ledge. 

Alas ! I have too completely forgotten the fable of the 
two sons of the magician of Bagdad. 

One of them, struck by an irrevocable decree of destiny, 
was born blind, whilst the other enjoyed all the delights of 
sight. The latter, proud of his own advantages, laughed 
at his brother’s blindness, and disdained him as a compan- 
ion. One morning the blind boy wished to go out with 
him : — 

“ To what purpose,” said he, “ since the gods have put 
nothing in common between us ? For me creation is a stage, 
where a thousand charming scenes and wonderful actors ap- 
pear in succession ; for you it is only an obscure abyss, at 
the bottom of which you hear the confused murmur of an 
invisible world. Continue then alone in your darkness, and 
leave the pleasures of light to those upon whom the day-star 
shines.” 

With these words he went away, and his brother, left 
alone, began to cry bitterly. His father, who heard him, 
immediately ran to him, and tried to console him by prom- 
ising to give him whatever he desired. 

“ Can you give me sight ? ” asked the child. 

“ Fate does not permit it,” said the magician. 

<c Then,” cried the blind boy eagerly, “ I ask you to put 
out the sun ! ” 

Who knows whether my pride has not provoked the 
same wish on the part of some one of my brothers who does 
not see ? 

But how much oftener have I erred through levity 


138 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


and want of thought ! How many resolutions have I taken 
at random ! how many judgments have I pronounced for the 
sake of a witticism ! how many mischiefs have J not done 
without any sense of my responsibility ! The greater part of 
men harm one another for the sake of doing something. We 
laugh at the honour of one, and compromise the reputation 
of another, like an idle man who saunters along a hedgerow, 
breaking the young branches and destroying the most beau- 
tiful flowers. 

And, nevertheless, it is by this very thoughtlessness that 
the fame of some men is created. It rises gradually, like 
one of those mysterious mounds in barbarous countries, to 
which a stone is added by every passer-by ; each one brings 
something at random, and adds it as he passes, without 
being able himself to see whether he is raising a pedestal or 
a gibbet. Who will dare look behind him, to see his rash 
judgments held up there to view? 

Some time ago, I was walking along the edge of the 
green mound on which the Montmartre telegraph stands. 
Below me, along one of the zigzag paths which wind up the 
hill, a man and a girl were coming up, and arrested my at- 
tention. The man wore a shaggy coat, which gave him some 
resemblance to a wild beast, and he held a thick stick in his 
hand, with which he described various strange figures in the 
air. He spoke very loud, and in a voice which seemed to 
me convulsed with passion. He raised his eyes every now 
and then with an expression of savage harshness, and it ap- 
peared to me that he was reproaching and threatening the 
girl, and that she was listening to him with a submissiveness 
which touched my heart. Two or three times she ventured 
a few words, doubtless in the attempt to justify herself ; but 
the man in the great-coat began again immediately with his 
loud and angry voice, his savage looks, and his threatening 
evolutions in the air. I followed him with my eyes, vainly 


THE END OF THE YEAR. 


139 


endeavouring to catch a word as lie passed, until he disap- 
peared behind the hill. 

I had evidently just seen one of those domestic tyrants, 
whose sullen tempers are excited by the patience of their 
victims, and who, though they have the power to become the 
beneficent gods of a family, choose rather to be their tor- 
mentors. 

I cursed the unknown savage in my heart, and I felt in- 
dignant that these crimes against the sacred peace of home 
could not be punished as they deserve, when I heard his 
voice approaching nearer. He had turned the path, and 
soon appeared before me at the top of the slope. 

The first glance, and his first words, explained every 
thing to me : in place of what I had taken for the furious 
tones and terrible looks of an angry ‘man, and the attitude 
of a frightened victim, I had before me only an honest citi- 
zen, who squinted and stuttered, but who was explaining the 
management of silk-worms to his attentive daughter. 

I turned homewards, smiling at my mistake ; but before 
I reached my faubourg I saw a crowd running, I heard calls 
for help, and every finger pointed in the same direction to a 
distant column of flame. A manufactory had taken fire, 
and every body was rushing forward to assist in extinguish- 
ing it. 

I hesitated. Night was coming on ; I felt tired ; a fa- 
vourite book was awaiting me : I thought there would be no 
want of help, and I went on my way. 

Just before I had erred from want of consideration ; now 
it was from selfishness and cowardice. 

But what ! have I not on a thousand other occasions for- 
gotten the duties which bind us to our fellow-men ? Is this 
the first time I have avoided paying society what I owe it ? 
Have I not always behaved to my companions with injus- 
tice, and like the lion? Have I not claimed successively 


140 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER. IN PARIS. 


every share ? If any one is so ill advised as to ask me to re. 
turn some little portion, I get provoked, I am angry, I try 
to escape from it by every means. How many times, wlien 
I have perceived a beggar sitting huddled up at the end of 
the street, have I not gone out of my way, for fear that com- 
passion would impoverish me by forcing me to be charita- 
ble ! How often have I doubted the misfortunes of others, 
that I might with justice harden my heart against them ! 
With what satisfaction have I sometimes verified the vices 
of the poor man, in order to show that his misery is the pun- 
ishment he deserves ! 

Oh ! let us not go further — let us not go further ! I in- 
terrupted the doctor’s examination, but how much sadder is 
this one ! W e pity the diseases of the body ; we shudder at 
those of the soul. 

I was happily disturbed in my reverie by my neighbour, 
the old soldier. 

Now I think of it, I seem always to have seen, during my 
fever, the figure of this good old man, sometimes leaning 
against my bed, and sometimes sitting at his table, surround- 
ed by his sheets of pasteboard. 

He has just come in with his glue-pot, his quire of green 
paper, and his great scissors. I called him by his name ; he 
uttered a joyful exclamation, and came near me. 

“ Well ! so the bullet is found again !” cried he, taking my 
two hands into the maimed one which was left him ; “ it has 
not been without trouble, I can tell you : the campaign has 
been long enough to win two clasps in. I have seen no few 
fellows with the fever batter windmills during my hospital 
days : at Leipsic, I had a neighbour who fancied a chimney 
was on fire in his .stomach, and who was always calling for 
the fire-engines ; but the third day it all went out of itself : 
but with you it has lasted twenty-eight days — as long as one 
of the Little Corporal’s campaigns.” 


THE END OF THE YEAR. 


141 


“ I am not mistaken, then ; you were near me ? ” 

“ Well ! I had only to cross the passage. This left hand 
has not made you a bad nurse for want of the right ; but, 
bah ! you did not know what hand gave you drink, and it did 
not prevent that beggar of a fever from being drowned — for 
all the world like Poniatowski in the Bister.’ 7 

The old soldier began to laugh, and I, feeling too much 
affected to speak, pressed his hand against my breast. He 
saw my emotion, and hastened to put an end to it. 

“ By the by, you know that from to-day you have a right 
to draw your rations again,” resumed he gaily ; “ four meals, 
like the German meinherrs — nothing more ! The doctor is 
your house steward.” 

“_We must find the cook, too,” replied I, with a smile. 

“ She is found,” said the veteran. 

11 Who is she ? 7 

“ Genevieve.” 

“ The fruit-woman ? ” 

“ While I am talking she is cooking for you, neighbour ; 
and do not fear her sparing either butter or trouble. As 
long as life and death were fighting for you, the honest wo- 
man passed her time in going up and down stairs to learn 
which way the battle went — And, stay, I am sure this is 
she — ” 

In fact we heard steps in the passage, and he went to 
open the door. 

“ Oh, well ! ” continued he, 11 it is mother Millot, our 
portress, another of your good friends, neighbour, and whose 
poultices I recommend to you. Come in, mother Millot — " 
come in ; we are quite bonny boys this morning, and ready to 
step a minuet if we had our dancing-shoes.” 

The portress came in, quite delighted. She brought my 
linen, washed and mended by herself, with a little bottle of 
Spanish wine, the gift of her sailor son, and kept for great 


142 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


occasions. I would have thanked her ; but the good woman 
imposed silence upon me, under the pretext that the doctor 
had forbidden me to speak. I saw her arrange every thing 
in my drawers, the neat appearance of which struck me ; an 
attentive hand had evidently been there, and day by day put 
straight the unavoidable disorder consequent on sickness. 

As she finished, Genevieve arrived with my dinner ; she 
was followed by mother Denis, the milkwoman over the way, 
who had learnt, at the same time, the danger I had been in, 
and that I was now beginning to be convalescent. The good 
Savoyard brought me a new laid egg, which she herself wished 
to see me eat. 

It was necessary to relate minutely all my illness to her. 
At every detail she uttered loud exclamations ; then, when 
the portress warned her to be less noisy, she excused herself 
in a whisper. They made a circle round me to see me eat 
my dinner ; each mouthful I took was accompanied by their 
expressions of satisfaction and thankfulness. Never had the 
king of France, when he dined in public, excited such admira- 
tion among the spectators. 

As they were taking the dinner away, my colleague, the 
old cashier, entered in his turn. 

I could not prevent my heart beating as I recognised 
nim. How would the heads of the firm look upon my ab- 
sence, and what did he come to tell me ? 

I waited with inexpressible anxiety for him to speak ; 
but he sat down by me, took my hand, and began rejoicing 
over my recovery, without saying a word about our masters. 
I could not endure this uncertainty any longer. 

“ And the Messieurs Durmer,” asked I, hesitatingly : 
“ how have they taken — the interruption to my work ? ” 

li There has been no interruption,” replied the old clerk, 
quietly. 

“ What do you mean ? ” 


143 


THE END - OV THE’ 

“ Each one in the office tot>k a share of your duty ; all has 
gone on as usual, and the Mes§iettr$ ^uihier' have .’pVp^eived 
no difference.” / y , t *»/,’/ ’», ’>>*/ 

This was too much. After /o»m^ny 'in stances of > ’affec- 
tion, this filled up the measure. £ jco^ld not> ^stiapn my 
tears. ’ * / /, , 

Thus the few services I had been able’ J Jo <jo' for othbrs, 
had been acknowledged by them a hundredfold ! I had sown 
a little seed, and every grain had fallen on good ground, and 
brought forth a whole sheaf. Ah ! this completes the lesson 
the doctor gave me. If it is true that the diseases, whether 
of the mind or body, are the fruit of our follies and our vices, 
sympathy and affection are also the rewards of our having 
done our duty. Every one 01 us, with God’s help, and 
within the narrow limits of human capability, himself makes 
his own disposition, character, and permanent condition. 

# # # # 

Every body is gone ; the old soldier has brought me 
back my flowers and my birds, and they are my only com- 
panions. The setting sun reddens my half-closed curtains 
with its last rays. My brain is clear, and my heart lighter. 
A thin mist floats before my eyes, and I feel myself in that 
happy state which precedes a refreshing sleep. 

Yonder, opposite the bed, the pale goddess in her drapery 
of a thousand, changing colours, and with her withered gar- 
land, again appears before me ; but this time I hold out my 
hand to her with a grateful smile. 

11 Adieu, beloved year ! whom I but now unjustly accused. 
That which I have suffered must not be laid to thee ; for 
thou wast but a tract through which God had marked 
out my road — a ground where I had reaped the harvest I 
had sown. I will love thee, thou wayside shelter, for those 
hours of happiness thou hast seen me enjoy ; I will love thee 
even for the suffering thou hast seen me endure. Neither 


144 


AN ATTIC ' f > 3IIL0S ! t)'I ?, IIER IN PARIS. 

happiness <npr suffering L eame from thee ; hut thou hast been 
the scetiu fdr'<tliem. 1 ‘Descend again then, in peace, into eter- 
nity a‘ud he blest, ,thmi )vhn hast left me experience in the 
<jilace<of youth, ° r sweet, memories instead of past time, and 
gratitude <as '•Myipept for good offices.” 



THE END. 























































































































































































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